The two players not singing along to the national anthem were the team's two non-Germans, Mesut Özil and Jerome Boateng.
The inclusion of these players in the 2014 World Cup winning side caused German media to celebrate the team as an example of Germany's successful multicultural experiment.
Özil later met the Turkish President before Germany's 2018 World Cup, accused Germany of racism when this caused a controversy, then turned his back on Germany and retired early from international football.
He is now a board member of the ruling party of Turkey and helps the Turkish football federation recruit other ethnic Turks living in Germany to play for Turkey.
Jerome Boateng, a mixed race German-Ghanaian, was convicted in 2021 for beating the mother of his children. After this, he dated a Polish model who eventually killed herself, and who alleged he beat her to the point of breaking her bones. Boateng's German mother wrote "For years, my son has been abusing women psychologically and physically."
Assimilation is a myth.
BREAKING: Iranian state media says it has now "no choice but to obtain the atomic bomb" to remove "the military option for the occupation and partitioning of Iran" from the table, arguing Iran must "absolutely reach nuclear deterrence" before current negotiations can be conducted "from a correct position," per Fars.
Iran adds the acquisition is not only driven by negotiation leverage but also by Trump's two recent nuclear threats against Iran, including his April warning that "a whole civilization will die tonight" and his May threat of "one big glow coming out of Iran."
This is also among the most direct nuclear weapons advocacy published on Iranian state media to date.