HANOVER, Germany — Most referees would rather spend an afternoon in a dentist’s chair than see their name in a newspaper headline. In their world, anonymity implies a job well done.

So forgive Bibiana Steinhaus for rolling her eyes when she thinks about the various times she has been tugged into the soccer news cycle. There was the men’s game she officiated seven years ago when a player accidentally touched her breast. There was the time in 2014 when Pep Guardiola, then the manager of Bayern Munich, put his hand on her — first angrily, then apologetically — as she did her job as a fourth official. There was the German Cup match, just this summer, when a mischievous Franck Ribéry untied her shoelace before a free kick.

Steinhaus, 38, brushed these moments aside when they occurred, but to her dismay, each incident was caught on video, and each quickly was blown up, in her view, far out of proportion.

“I work my butt off for 20 years,” Steinhaus said with a sharp laugh, “and I’m famous for that?”

That and, now, much more. On a crisp afternoon this week, Steinhaus, whose career has included officiating the finals of every major global women’s soccer competition, recapped the invigorating last few months of her life. In September, she reached a new professional pinnacle, officiating her first game in the Bundesliga, the top level of German soccer. In doing so, she became the first woman to referee a match in one of Europe’s top leagues.