Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon – but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?

After becoming well-known in England during her time with Chelsea, more chapters in the shot-stopper's incredible story are being written at Euro 2025

Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon - but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon - but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon - but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon - but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon - but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon - but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?Ann-Katrin Berger: Two-time cancer survivor is Germany's new football icon - but can heroic goalkeeper keep out Spain's superstars in Euros semi-final?

Germany are going to be up against it on Wednesday as they take on Spain for a place in the 2025 final. Not only did Saturday’s quarter-final win over France take it out of them from a fatigue perspective, with the eight-time winners somehow getting through 120 gruelling minutes with just 10 players before winning the shootout, it also depleted them numerically, with Kathrin Hendrich suspended after her brainless red card, Sjoeke Nusken picking up a yellow that also rules her out and Sarai Linder joining Giulia Gwinn on the injury list. Germany will have only 19 players available, three of them goalkeepers.

Perhaps no one is more important to Christian Wuck and his team, though, than one of those ‘keepers. As Germany defied the odds to progress on Saturday night, it was Ann-Katrin Berger who stole the show, first with a truly outstanding save to prevent an own goal from Janina Minge and then with her penalty shootout heroics, as she saved two either side of her own thumping finish to book her nation’s place in the last four.

“We knew that we could only survive with mentality, fighting spirit and solidarity,” Wuck said afterwards. No one embodies those values better than Berger, whose status as one of the best goalkeepers in the world is made all the more incredible by the two battles with cancer she has endured during her time at the very top of the game.

Women’s Euro 2025 tickets were made available through official UEFA channels atu0026nbsp;womenseuro.com and ticketcorner.ch and demand has been high with over 500,000 sold. Close collaboration with each association following the final tournament draw, helped process the sale of tickets to fans of the participating teams.

For fans of the women’s game in , Berger is extremely well-known. It was in the Women’s that the goalkeeper first properly asserted herself as a top-quality player, having struggled to make her mark in the or, after joining Paris Saint-Germain as a 24-year-old, the Premiere Ligue.

She joined Birmingham City in 2016 and, after earning the first of her four PFA Team of the Year nominations in the Midlands, would spend the majority of her nine years in England with Chelsea, becoming a vital cog in a team she lifted 10 major honours with.

Berger became renowned for her incredible reflexes, the world-class saves she could produce in the biggest games and – as so many more now know – her knack for saving penalties.

But she was also well-known because of her incredible story. The word ‘inspiring’ is thrown around a lot nowadays, but it well and truly applies to Berger, who was first diagnosed with thyroid cancer back in late 2017. One only has to look at how the next year or so panned out to learn a lot about the German’s character: She returned to the pitch in February 2018, was named to the PFA Team of the Year in April, and in January of the following year, signed for Chelsea.

Almost five years after that first diagnosis, Berger revealed that there had been a recurrence in her thyroid. It didn’t slow her down for long, though. A month later, she was back, stealing the show in a 2-0 win over title rivals Manchester City.

“I just want to tell my story to help people out there,” she told BBC Sport during those battles. “I [fought] it and I’m a normal person. So why can’t other people do it?”

It’s not something Berger dwells on too much today. “I feel like I’m not really an emotional person but I’m glad that I’m here and I’m glad that I have the team-mates I have,” she said after Saturday’s win, asked to reflect on her journey from cancer diagnosis to this point. “What happened here makes me proud to be here. Whatever happened in 2022, I’m looking forward now to the future. Now I live my best life and I’m in the semi-final.”

However, it’s something that has clearly impacted and shaped her as a person and, in the context of this Germany team, a leader. “She is a player who has had extreme experiences,” Wuck said. “That is a very important character trait. I think her faith and pathway in life has made sure she is patient, and the patience and calmness she brings to the team she proved today. It’s just incredibly important that you have such personalities in the team, that you have a goalkeeper in the team who radiates calm.”

Patience is something Berger has needed during her time in the national team set-up, too. Despite being a star in England for so long, the shot-stopper found international opportunities tough to come by. It wasn’t until two years after her first call-up that she made her Germany debut, back in 2020, and she didn’t make a single appearance at Euro 2022 or the 2023 Women’s .

That was despite being voted to the PFA Team of the Year in England in 2020, 2021 and 2022, and finishing third in voting for The Best FIFA Goalkeeper in 2021 and 2022. Berger had established herself as one of the best in the world in her position, and yet if you turned on the summer’s big international tournament, you wouldn’t see her.

That was until last year. With Merle Frohms struggling for form, Germany’s interim boss Horst Hrubesch decided to drop her from the No.1 spot as the Olympic Games approached and in came Berger, now at Gotham in the States and in the middle of a season that would see her crowned the ‘s Goalkeeper at the Year.

As her nation won a somewhat unexpected bronze medal at Paris 2024, the shot-stopper delivered huge moments – particularly when it came to penalties, of course. Berger was the shootout hero in the quarter-final win over while she kept out Alexia Putellas’ spot-kick in the dying moments of the bronze medal match, to ensure Germany got on the podium instead of Spain.

Unsurprisingly, when Wuck took over the team after that tournament, he had no reason to make another change. Six years after her first senior international call-up, aged 33, Berger was finally Germany’s No.1 goalkeeper.

Just as she did at the Olympics last summer, Berger is taking full advantage of that opportunity at Euro 2025. It’s not been easy for Germany in Switzerland. Already without star holding midfielder Lena Oberdorf after she failed to recover from an ACL tear in time, captain Gwinn limped off with a tournament-ending injury during their opening game and just as her replacement, Carlotta Wamser, was playing impressively at right-back, she was sent off in a concerning 4-1 defeat to to conclude the group stage.

Replacing Wamser was one of three defensive rejigs needed for the quarter-final against France. Hendrich’s red card, 13 minutes into the clash, would prompt another at centre-back, before Linder, who took Wamser’s place, limped off just seven minutes later. Throw in Nusken’s suspension for an accumulation of yellow cards which will leave Germany light in midfield against Spain on Wednesday, and Wuck certainly has his work cut out for him when it comes to assembling a team capable of beating the world champions.

But for all the defensive inconsistencies and imbalance that Germany are going to have to overcome in order to keep their European Championship dream alive, one constant will remain behind it: The inspiring leadership, outstanding reflexes and confidence-instilling composure of Ann-Katrin Berger. With her around, there is always reason to believe.