Goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger wrote her name into the annals of German football history after her heroic performance against France on Saturday helped her team — who were down to 10 players — enter the semi-finals at the European Championship via a 6-5 penalty shootout win.
The 34-year-old Berger, a two-time cancer survivor, showed the same spirit to fight off the French attackers.
She made a jaw-dropping save in the first 15 minutes of extra time when she back-pedalled and leapt at full stretch, clawing the ball off the line after a header from her own teammate threatened to loop in. After the game ended 1-1, following 120 minutes of playing time, she denied Alice Sombath’s penalty (France’s seventh), shortly after converting her own, to send the German fans into raptures.
Berger’s first thyroid cancer diagnosis came in 2017, but she made a swift recovery in 76 days. The cancer resurfaced in 2022. Yet, she would not give up and made another rapid recovery in a month’s time. Fast forward to three years later, her resilience has now seen her play a starring role for Germany and will no doubt inspire her team to go all the way.
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