Germany
Germany team back home after Paris terror attacks
Germany

Germany team back home after Paris terror attacks

Published Nov. 14, 2015 7:43 a.m. ET

BERLIN --

Germany players were given the day off on arriving home on Saturday after spending the night at the Stade de France because of the terror attacks in Paris.

The World Cup champions landed in Frankfurt on a specially chartered flight, and team manager Oliver Bierhoff said the players should ''first take a deep breath and be with their loved ones.''

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After the friendly against France on Friday, Germany slept at the stadium with the French after two explosions went off outside during the game.

Germany is due to play the Netherlands in another friendly in Hannover on Tuesday but has delayed its journey. All team activities scheduled for Sunday have been cancelled.

Reinhard Rauball, the interim DFB president, said they will consult with national coach Joachim Loew and Bierhoff on Sunday on whether to play the game

''We'll sleep on it for a night and then see how we go about or don't go about things on Tuesday. But I think you can't give way to terror,'' Rauball said.

Rainer Koch, the other caretaker president, said ''we have to respect the requirements of the security authorities. Basically, the DFB and national team have a social and political responsibility to send a clear message that our constitutional state will not give in to terror.''

Also, the DFB published a statement regarding the attacks that have left at least 127 people dead in the French capital.

''We all looked forward to playing in the Stade de France, to have a great night of football, which ended up turning into a nightmare,'' the statement said.

''It was a dull bang, which changed everything. It produced pictures that will remain in our heads for a long time. We spent the night doing a lot of thought-processing. We asked ourselves why something like this could happen? How is such inhumanity even possible? There were a lot of answers, but none that could explain these cowardly attacks.''

Regarding the 2-0 loss to France, the DFB said, ''we lost a game of football on Friday evening. But nothing is as irrelevant as that right now.''

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