The German goalkeeper of the English champion FC Chelsea knows how to fight. Ann-Katrin Berger has defeated the cancer. In a DW Interview, the 28-Year-old speaks about this time and their next targets.
Weak Form, strange requirements of a new Coach, a rejected exchange request, the career obstacles, where football professionals to see normally. However, for Ann-Katrin Berger of the fight in November 2017 away from the stadiums and training grounds shifted to hospital wards and operating tables. Only a year and a half, after they had stood for Birmingham City in the final of the English women’s FA Cups at Wembley in front of over 35,000 Fans between the posts, felt the German goalkeeper a knot at the neck. The Diagnosis: Thyroid Cancer.
“It was a shock,” says Berger of the DW in the sprawling training complex in your new club FC Chelsea. “As a footballer you don’t think about something like that. You have to lead a healthy life, you drive every day Sport.” She was the goalkeeper, “a man who needs to get things done as quickly as possible. Immediately after the diagnosis, I asked myself: What am I supposed to now, what do I do now?”
From the mental strength to draw
In December 2017, you had to undergo a serious Operation. The 28-Year-old was missing in this difficult Situation, especially your family, who lives in the southwest of Germany. Force drew Berger from your professional. “For me, it was not a solution, to be sick,” she says. “As an athlete you have to fight every day. Even on my Position in goal I have to fight in every training session to the next Sunday back on the court. Goalkeepers enjoy the bad reputation, to be crazy people. I don’t know why. I would not describe myself as crazy. But I do think that the mentality of a goalkeeper also helped me in this Situation.”
Ann-Katrin Berger during her time as a goalkeeper from Birmingham City
You had only been willing to accept the worst-case scenario, “when it happens because even really”. The return to the Sport that you love, since she could remember, had been the driving force for their quick recovery. Only 61 days after your surgery, after you had started in terms of Fitness “back to Zero,” Berger again for Birmingham between the posts and kept up with the victory of their team in the fourth round of the FA Cup against Reading FC your box clean. This was an unforgettable Moment, admits Berger, which tends otherwise to your notice playing values of recovery and prefer to talk about virtues such as Teamwork, professionalism, and mentality. “Step-by-step I did on this day, my Job. I had something I could fight,” she says. “We won the game to Zero, and it was a good team performance. I think, on this day, you have actually played for me. That was a good feeling.”
Now the English Champions
More good feelings soon followed With impressive performances Berger Birmingham helped to a surprising fourth place in the Women’s Super League, the top women’s football League of England. At the end of last season, Berger from the English professional footballers ‘ Union, has been elected to the “PFA Team of the year”. Then, just 12 months after their cancer diagnosis, she was nominated for the German women’s national team. In January, she finally joined the reigning Champions Chelsea and kept clean in your home is an important FA Cup victory debut, again, this time against Arsenal, again your box.
Successful debut for Chelsea in the Cup game against Arsenal
The former goalkeeper of Paris Saint-Germain and Turbine Potsdam must face not only in England, but also with a view to the national team a tough competition. Your target is clear. Berger wants to be in the squad of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg for the world Cup in the summer in France: “It’s already a success to even be at the world Cup. But if you will be invited to play, of course. But we have really good Goalkeepers. It is so hard. But nothing is impossible.” Demonstrated by Berger more than once.