“All we have is now”
That is the background of Bergers Halstattoo
07/21/2025 – 9:48 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger got a lot of criticism from the European Championship. But it obviously leaves it quite cold – probably also because she has already experienced many more difficult times.
At the age of 34, Ann-Katrin Berger was Germany’s number one in the goal at the women’s European Championship. She wears a striking tattoo on her neck. It says in characters: “All we have is now” – we only have the present.
It is a message that fits your history. Because Berger survived two cancer. The German national goalkeeper now speaks for the first time about the importance of her tattoos – and about her way back.
She deliberately chose the position of the tattoo. Berger explains: “I had problems with the scars that I had from the cancer surgery. They bothered me. I then had it overturned so that nobody sees it.” Today the tattoo direct attention – and no longer the scars.
Your other tattoos are also related to her history of illness. “I now have a tree on my arm that is the latest. I had it done in my second illness. The roots of a tree are more important than the beautiful around it,” says Berger. At her first diagnosis in 2017, she had a compass stung with a folder.
Cancer came back during the European Championships in 2022. Today Berger plays in New York – and is regularly in medical control. An investigation is pending every six months. At the moment everything is fine, she says.
What she took from her story clearly sums it up: “I am grateful every day that my body works so well and also made the illness so well. It is not easy, and you don’t have to say anything nice. I am grateful that I can exercise the sport I love and that I have my family around me.”