After the Olympics, Brânză began to complain of tendon pain in her weapon hand, but the competition rhythm did not allow her to attend to it. At the 2009 European Championships in Plovdiv she was defeated in the second round by fellow Romanian Anca Măroiu, but secured her third continental team title after Romania defeated successively Russia, Germany and Poland. Teammate Simona Gherman jokingly referred to the team as the “ girls”, after the "Powerpuff Girls" anime, because of the hardships of the match against Russia. The nickname stuck. They would later incorporate it in their pre-match battle cry: “We're the Powerpuff Girls and we'll make mincemeat of you!” ()