Soccer-Germany's Berger seizes her moment in shootout win over France
BASEL (Reuters) -Germany goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger embodied her side's spirit of resistance in their Women's Euro quarter-final as they bounced back from an early red card and the concession of a goal to take France to a 1-1 draw over 120 minutes before beating them 6-5 in a shootout that saw her save two spot-kicks and score one herself.
The 34-year-old, who has twice beaten cancer, lives by the motto of "All we have is now", and she seized her moment on Saturday, pulling off an incredible save to prevent a second-half own goal and then powering her side through to the semi-finals, where they will face Spain in Zurich on Wednesday.
"I was not happy that we had to go to the penalty shootout because I would have loved to have won the game in 90 minutes and have it done and dusted," Berger told reporters before paying tribute to her squad.
"I think credit should go to the team, not me, because maybe it (my save) was the decisive moment in the penalty shootout, but we, everyone here, should talk about this with him (coach Christian Wueck) now about the performance of the team, because that was amazing and incredible."
Germany midfielder Sjoeke Nuesken had a penalty saved in normal time but converted in the shootout, and she was full of praise for Berger's skills.
"She's an amazing goalkeeper. She's so calm, she's so clever. I knew she would save the penalties. She's such an amazing goalkeeper, and we are very happy that she's in our team," Nuesken said.
With defender Kathrin Hendrich sent off in the 13th minute for pulling an opponent's hair, the Germans had to battle for more than 100 minutes with one player fewer than their French counterparts, but despite their heroics, Berger did not want to promise that they would beat Spain to make the final.
"We do everything one step at a time -- first of all we celebrate, then we focus on Spain, there is a very hard and tough opponent we have to face and everybody really gave their ultimate effort here and we need to regenerate, we have to make sure we recover," Berger explained.
"We like the stadium for the final match, and we will continue to progress towards that," she added.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor, additional reporting by Lori Ewing, editing by Daniel Wallis)
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