Which footballers have refused to celebrate a goal against another country? | The Knowledge

“Sweden’s Yasin Ayari has a Tunisian father and chose not to celebrate his first goal against Tunisia (he couldn’t resist celebrating when he scored later, though). Declan Rice did something similar after scoring against the Republic of Ireland in 2024, but what is the earliest example of a player not celebrating a goal at international level because of a connection to the opposition?” asks Michael Pilcher. “I remember Breel Embolo, the Swiss international born in Cameroon, not celebrating after scoring against Cameroon at the 2022 World Cup,” replies Filippo Varanini. During a European Championship qualifying match in 2010, Mesut Özil showed restraint in his celebrations when he scored for Germany against Turkey in a 3-0 win – the former Real Madrid playmaker was born in Gelsenkirchen to Turkish immigrants. But the earliest example we can find of this particular gesture is with a teammate of Özil’s, Lukas Podolski, who scored two goals against Poland , the country of his birth, at Euro 2008. “This was a difficult and emotional game for me,” he told FourFourTwo magazine in 2022 . “Both the German and Polish press focused on me before it, building the pressure, and there were so many Polish fans in the ground. I didn’t celebrate, but I’m a professional and had to do what was expected of me. I support Poland on every other occasion. …