{"id":283188,"date":"2025-07-22T18:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283188\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:31:12","slug":"match-awards-from-germanys-dramatic-penalty-shootout-win-over-france-at-euro-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283188\/","title":{"rendered":"Match Awards from Germany\u2019s dramatic penalty shootout win over France at EURO 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jersey Swap: Grace Geyoro<\/strong><\/p>\n

France\u2019s game ran down the left flank more, with midfielder Sakina Karchaoui and left-back Selma Bacha as two of the most active and involved Les Bleues players on the day. O.J. Francois at the center of midfield also deserves a shout. However, all of France\u2019s 75% possession over 120 minutes truly did not amount to much. Paris Saint-Germain\u2019s Geyoro tucked home a penalty for the only French goal and contributed a number of crisp passes as well.<\/p>\n

Der Kaiser: Franziska Kett<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 20-year-old Bayern Munich<\/a> left-back started all of one game in the last Frauen-Bundesliga campaign and did not make a single appearance at the EUROs prior to her start on Saturday. She turned in an outstanding and composed performance, holding down the left flank that Sarai Linder vacated in order to fill in at right-back. Now that Linder is out, potentially for the rest of the tournament, Kett will need to make this position her own. Her defensive work stood out on Saturday, especially as she is traditionally played further up on the pitch.<\/p>\n

Fu\u00dfballgott: Sjoeke N\u00fcsken<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll give another shout out to Eintracht Frankfurt\u2019s Elisa Sen\u00df for her crunching tackles and physical play in the German midfield, all while avoiding a single booking. N\u00fcsken, her pivot partner, was not so lucky as her second yellow card means she will now miss Wednesday\u2019s semifinal against Spain. Germany will need to replace the fiery attitude she brings. N\u00fcsken was Sjoeke-on-the-spot when her team needed her most, clawing back the all-important equalizer with a pinpoint flicked-on header on a corner.<\/p>\n

She had the chance to give Germany a late lead that France did not look likely to respond to, but saw her penalty saved. Still, it was on target, which is more than we can say for a lot of the spot kicks at these EUROs \u2014 keeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin just guessed the right way.<\/p>\n

Der Bomber: Jule Brand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four spots are technically in contention for this award, but Wolfsburg-to-OL winger Jule Brand and Bayern\u2019s Klara B\u00fchl have been owning the der Bomber this tournament. The German pair are one of the most exciting wing duos to watch at the EUROs. Against France, B\u00fchl supplied the excellent near-post corner delivery for N\u00fcsken\u2019s goal but Brand really stole the show with her unbelievable defensive workrate \u2014 an astonishing 31 ground duels, 15 won (via sofascore<\/a>) to nearly match the entirety of the defensive line, starters and subs, put together, while also keeping the German attacking threat alive by driving forward with regularity on the break. Her play up and down the pitch was crucial to the result.<\/p>\n

Meisterin of the Match: Ann-Katrin Berger<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gotham FC keeper Ann-Katrin Berger: the hero Germany needed.<\/p>\n

\"France<\/p>\n

Photo by Jose Breton\/Pics Action\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Berger is a shot-stopper par excellence and has she ever shown it in this tournament. AKB\u2019s backpedaling, body-sacrificing save of a goal-bound deflection from Janina Minge surely goes down as the save of the tournament<\/a>. On top of that, her nine saves and authoritative presence steadied Germany in the impossible situation of going a woman down early against one of the tournament\u2019s most lethal attacking teams. Germany\u2019s defense did the hard work up the field, and that job was made easier knowing they had a rock at the back \u2014 Berger claiming the ball and falling to the ground for good measure and a few more ticks off the clock being the theme of the day.<\/p>\n

Then came the penalty shootout. There might not be a keeper you\u2019d rather face less at the EUROs than Berger, who will stand tall, stolid and stoic, arms folded behind her back while staring you down and calmly picking her direction \u2014 and no, she didn\u2019t even check<\/a> her bottle. She did it all before, last summer<\/a> against Spain at the Olympics and she\u2019ll do it again. Against France, she saved the first and the last penalty and stepped up to bury her own in the middle. At the end she dropped to her knees and embraced her onrushing teammates, an iconic image from an iconic player.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s our AKB. We\u2019re glad to have her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jersey Swap: Grace Geyoro France\u2019s game ran down the left flank more, with midfielder Sakina Karchaoui and left-back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[9200,7747,14010,6098,9198,70201,9199,16742,2000,47304,299,94,36,21003,163,1824,6100,12153,49079,16757,2955,106225,6101,21741,9356,9201,6099],"class_list":{"0":"post-283188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-all-womens-sports","9":"tag-at","10":"tag-awards","11":"tag-bavarian","12":"tag-bayern-munich-frauen","13":"tag-bayern-munich-match-awards","14":"tag-bayern-munich-match-observations","15":"tag-dramatic","16":"tag-eu","17":"tag-euro","18":"tag-europe","19":"tag-football","20":"tag-france","21":"tag-from","22":"tag-front-page","23":"tag-germany","24":"tag-germany-international-soccer","25":"tag-match","26":"tag-over","27":"tag-penalty","28":"tag-s","29":"tag-shootout","30":"tag-soccer-sg","31":"tag-uefa-european-championship","32":"tag-win","33":"tag-womens-soccer","34":"tag-works"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114898317086805809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}