As war began, this half-Ukrainian teen ‘fell in love’ with football. Next stop: Boise State

Before the first early-morning chirps of house sparrows and Eurasian blackbirds were heard floating above Berlin’s rooftops, Daniil Starykh was awake and packing his bags in the dark, preparing for a long day ahead.

It was 5 a.m. on a weekday in the first half of 2022. Starykh lived a 90-minute drive from school, but before starting that journey, he had to get ready and quietly sneak out of the two-bedroom apartment he shared with seven other people.

The early-morning routine had been Starykh’s life for a couple of months by this point. He usually lived with just his mother. But for a few months, a small apartment in eastern Germany became a temporary refuge for his sister, two nieces and some family friends from Ukraine, who fled when Russia invaded in February 2022.

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