An entire German soccer team took a knee before a game, echoing the NFL anthem protests

Hertha Berlin players kneeling before a game on October 14.Twitter/Hertha Berlin

A Berlin-based soccer team knelt before a game on Saturday.

Both players and officials of Hertha Berlin got down on one knee prior to the game “For a tolerant Berlin and an open-minded world, now and forevermore!” according to a tweet by the team.

“We are living in the 21st century, not the 18th century, but there are some people who haven’t developed their ideologies accordingly,” one of the the teams players, Sebastian Langkamp, told Sky Sports in an interview, according to the BBC. “If we can give them a bit of help in doing so, then that’s good.”

The gesture, which NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started in 2016 when he knelt during the playing of the national anthem prior to a game, was originally a protest over how the US, and particularly the police, treats black people and people of color.

The protest’s spread to Europe is just another symptom of the spotlight placed on the gesture after President Donald Trump made it a signature issue, telling a crowd in Arizona in September that any player that kneels in the NFL should be fired.

Since then, kneeling and other gestures of protest or solidarity have spread across the league.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called on teams and owners this week to curb the practice. The NFL said Friday it will not be seeking a change in rules to force players to stand, however.

Hertha lost to their opponent, Schalke, 0-2.