Germany striker Alexandra Popp revealed the injury that ruled her out of the final occurred when she was practising penalties in their last training session on Saturday.
Popp was initially named in the team at Wembley but pulled out after aggravating the issue in the warm-up.
The 31-year-old had battled back from a succession of injuries to be one of the stars of tournament and was vying for the Golden Boot with England forward Beth Mead.
Popp, who had scored in all five Germany matches at the tournament, said: “On Saturday in the last training [session], we did penalties and I shot my last penalty and got pain in my muscle in my foot.
“We did everything we could with the physiotherapist, with the doctor and it was not enough. My muscle said ‘no, it is not for you’. I am sad about it. Also I’m proud of the team. We had a great tournament.
“Congrats to England, they also played a very good tournament. The fans at Wembley were great, you can feel women’s football here and that is very important for the game, throughout the world and in Europe. It was a great tournament.”
Germany manager Martina Voss-Tecklenburg was left fuming by a “clear handball” on the goal-line by Leah Williamson in the first half.
She criticised referee Kateryna Monzul for not re-checking the incident after the VAR ruled her decision not to award a penalty was not a clear and obvious error.
“In such a big game, it’s difficult to cope with that,” said Voss-Tecklenburg. “It happened to us today, but if it had happened to them [England] I’d feel the same.”