102nd minute, Parc Saint-Jacques, Basel. For a few seconds, the German and French fans fell silent as experienced central defender Janina Minge headed a cross from Sakina Karchaoui goal-bound. She was about to lob her own goalkeeper.
But then the unthinkable happened: Ann-Katrin Berger took a few steps and brilliantly intervened to push away a ball that was heading for the top corner. The French thought they had scored a miraculous own goal in extra time. The German goalkeeper decided otherwise.
It was such a memorable save that Charlotte Harpur of The Athletic, stunned in the press box, wrote: "There is no such thing as the best save of all time (...), but Berger is now part of that conversation."
Against France, Berger made a total of 9 saves and made two vital stops in the penalty shootout to disgust Les Bleues despite being outnumbered since the 14th minute and Kathrin Hendrich's dismissal.
She finished with the Player of the Match award.
"I'm not a very emotional person," she said in the press conference.
"I'm just happy and proud to be here, to be in this team."
At the final whistle, the competition's producers decided to film her close-up, and Berger took the opportunity to pay a quick tribute to her grandfather, who had just turned 92. But she quickly got annoyed and asked the cameraman to film the rest of the team celebrating with the fans: "Hey, film the team too, not just me. The team is just as important!"
A quiet force for channelling young talent
The 34-year-old goalkeeper, who plays for Gotham in the American women's league, believes she was "just doing her job", despite making some decisive saves in penalty shoot-outs. She is a quiet force, capable of calming down young players like Jule Brand, who was full of energy for 120 minutes, or Sjoeke Nüsken, who scored the equaliser and celebrated like a worm at the final whistle.
"She's so calm, so intelligent. I knew she'd save penalties," she told the mixed zone afterwards, while winger Klara Buhl described her as "the pillar of serenity in the team", with her "extraordinary life experience".
A calmness and relativity that Ann-Katrin Berger indeed draws from a life that has been far from simple. In 2017, while playing for Birmingham City, her first case of thyroid cancer was diagnosed. After a quick return to the pitch six months later, Berger relapsed at the end of August 2022, having just spent the summer on the DFB bench during a Euro where Germany lost to England in the semi-finals.
Her history with the eight-time European champions is also far from straightforward: the player who grew up playing as a striker and midfielder before settling in goal at the age of 16 because she had "become too lazy to run", waited until she was 27 and transferred to Chelsea to pull on the German shirt for the first time.
After her first cap in a Euro 2022 qualifier against Ireland, she took advantage of Germany's historic elimination in the group stage of the 2023 World Cup to be promoted to number one spot, taking Merle Frohms' place.
Heroine of the 2024 Olympic Games
A starter at the Olympic Games, where the DFB finished third, Berger played in all six matches and even scored a penalty after saving two against Canada in the quarter-finals. She even saved Alexia Putellas' 90th-minute penalty in the third-place play-off to help Germany secure bronze. An unpleasant memory for the Spanish Ballon d'Or winner, who will face the "German wall" again in the semi-finals on Wednesday.
But while Berger has established herself as Germany's undisputed first-choice keeper, and was reinforced by Christian Wuck when he took charge of the national team in August 2024, the 34-year-old almost found herself on the bench after a chaotic start to Euro 2025.
The German goalkeeper made three full-stretch saves against a Sweden side that really didn't need any help after taking a 3-1 lead by half-time, but her coach subbed her off, insisting that Germany "wouldn't last long" in the competition if she continued to dribble in her area.
A complicated start to the Euros
"To put it nicely, I'm not really interested in those who criticise in one way or another off the football pitch," replied Ann-Katrin Berger to her detractors, happy that this bad patch had happened to her "now and not in the quarter-finals". I'm very critical by nature, so I don't really need to hear criticism from someone who's never been in goal."
After her stellar performance against Les Bleues, the time has come for praise rather than criticism. The 34-year-old, who has just 26 caps to her name, has even been praised by the legend Lothar Matthaus, captain of the 1990 FIFA World Cup-winning Germany team, who believes Berger has "the quality and ambition to lead the team to a great achievement".
The goalkeeper, for her part, is at least dreaming of reaching the final, as she did in 2022, for very personal reasons: "My grandfather turned 92 a few days ago. My motivation is to get him to the Final. He said that the quarter-finals and semi-finals are not worth it."