French Soccer Team's Classy Gesture After Attack

The Paris terrorist attacks Friday included explosions outside the soccer stadium where France and Germany were playing a match. Afterwards the German team was told not to go back to its team hotel, because of safety concerns, so the players stayed inside Stade de France for most of the night.

The French team decided to stay with them as a show of solidarity.

Reinhard Rauball, the acting president of Germany's national soccer federation, called it "outstanding gesture of camaraderie."

"The French said that they were staying as long as Germany had to stay," Rauball said.

Here is footage of the soccer action while explosions can be heard from outside the stadium:

An interesting wrinkle is that the match continued after the explosions with the two coaches opting against telling their players what had happened, as reported by Sam Borden of the New York Times:

The coaches' decisions, along with typically spotty cellphone reception during major events at the cavernous Stade de France just north of Paris, made for a surreal atmosphere: The players played and most of the fans cheered as usual, unaware of what was going on around them, while a smattering of coaches, officials and journalists (all of whom had access to the Internet) grimly followed the escalating carnage of the coordinated terrorist attacks that killed at least 129 people and injured scores more.