SAN JOSE, Calif. — Gotham FC goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger jokes that she’s getting old.
That’s why the 35-year-old said her body aches heading into Saturday’s championship match against the Washington Spirit.
Once Berger steps onto the pitch Saturday and the game begins, all the fatigue caused by the grueling season ceases to exist.
The aches and pains disappear, too.
“Normally, [it] just switches off,” Berger told The Post. “There’s a readiness, and it’s like 100 percent. And I’m just telling myself there’s no tiredness, no complaints of anything.”
Berger is still playing like she’s in her prime and almost always delivers saves worthy of a highlight reel.
“Every time you think you’ve seen the best save ever, she has one at training or one at a game that really just [tops the previous one],” teammate Mandy Freeman said. “She’s just always striving to be better, and she’s pretty hard on herself, and I think that’s what helps her want to be the best every day.”
Berger said she doesn’t keep track of her best saves.
Her teammates, though, were happy to dish on their most recent favorites.
In last weekend’s semifinals win, Berger stopped the Pride’s last-ditch effort to tie the game, blocking Oihane Hernández’s header.
Freeman was especially relieved because it was her foul that led to the free kick that set up Hernández.
“Having her behind me, I definitely feel secure,” Freeman said. “After that play, it was my foul that I caused and I thanked her. I was like, ‘Thank you for having my back.’ ”
The one that came to Emily Sonnett’s mind was the stop she had on Current forward Ally Sentnor’s strike in the quarterfinals.
“Ally hit an absolute banger,” Sonnett said. “I’m not sure if Ann saw it the whole way… I’m really impressed with her [and] her reaction. … When I saw the back view of it, like, I kind of couldn’t believe it.”
The one everyone was talking about, though, was Berger’s full-arm extension to stop a potential own goal by her teammate in Germany’s Euro 2025 quarterfinal victory against France.
A photo of that save hangs in Gotham’s “bat cave” at their facility along with other printed out memes, tweets and silly photos of other players.
“That one was incredible,” Freeman said. “I tweeted, like, ‘Put that on a T-shirt and I would wear it.’ ”
Berger is the best insurance policy Gotham has against an imposing Washington attack.
If Gotham comes out victorious Saturday, Berger’s fingerprints will be all over it.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
