Why Germany wear white, despite it not being a colour on their flag

Have you ever wondered why Germany wear white, despite it not being a colour in their country's flag? Fans are only just finding out why.

There are few more iconic national teams than Germany, especially when it comes to the World Cup, a tournament they rarely fail to get into the latter stages of.

Of course, they didn't make it past the group stages four years ago, succumbing to the reigning champions curse, and their shock opening loss to Japan last week made it look like it would happen again.

Before 2018 though, they'd made it to the semi finals, at very least, for the previous four tournaments and 1978, when there were two group stages, was the previous time they hadn't made it at least to the quarters.

As well as the team being iconic, so are their kits, with their classic white usually combined with a beautiful pattern, with their famous 1990 shirt, when they became champion for the third time, one of the World Cup's all time classics.

Unlike the likes of England, Belgium, Netherlands, USA, Cameroon and many others, Germany's kit has nothing to do with their country's flag.

The European country use a tricolour of red, black and yellow but they don't play in any of those colours, instead picking the white.

That's due to colour of the Prussian flag, the state that stretched from the modern day border of Russia to the border of France in the west.

The area known as the German empire had a white flag, originally with a cross in the middle, later replaced by the black eagle, which still adorns their team's emblem.

When the German football team was set up in 1899, they decide to adopt the Prussian colours, keeping them even after the Kingdom of Prussia ended nearly two decades later.

Germany celebrate their goal vs Spain. Image: Alamy

Germany looked like they were facing group stage elimination from Qatar when they were beaten by Japan in their opening game.

It meant that if Japan beat Costa Rica, who lost their opening game 7-0 to Spain, and any positive result for Spain would have seen Germany go out.

However, Flick's team were actually saved by Costa Rica bouncing back after their opening game humiliation to earn a point vs Japan.

Germany then earned themselves a much needed point vs 2010 world champions, thanks to Niclas Fullkrug late equaliser, making him perhaps the most unlikely of saviours.

Topics: Germany, Football World Cup, Football

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a journalist for SPORTbible with over eight years of experience. Passionate about all sports, he mainly covers football and F1 - Daniel Ricciardo once spent an entire interview referring to him as 'Ryan Gosling,' still his proudest moment.

@Sidler28