The Death Match was a football (soccer for Americans) match between a POW Soviet team, “FC Start”, and a team comprised of Luftwaffe members, “Flakelf”. The match was played on August 9th, 1942, and was refereed by a Waffen SS soldier.
The referee was biased, and he allowed fouls against the Soviet side. He even allowed a German to kick the Soviet goalkeeper in the head. Eventually, the Soviet team pulled off a 5-3 win. This win had huge consequences for the winners.
A number of the FC Start players were arrested and tortured by the Gestapo (Hitler's secret service), allegedly for being NKVD (Stalin's secret service) members (as Dynamo was a police-funded club).
One of the arrested players, Mykola Korotkykh, died under torture. The rest were sent to the Syrets labour camp, where Ivan Kuzmenko, Oleksey Klimenko, and the goalkeeper Mykola Trusevich were later killed, in February 1943.