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Germany are going to be up against it on Wednesday as they take on Spain for a place in the 2025 European Championship 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.