Christopher Martins Pereira (born 19 February 1997) is a Luxembourgish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a defensive midfielder or

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Russian Premier League club

Spartak Moscow Spartak Moscow may refer to the following teams based or formerly based in Moscow, Russia: * FC Spartak Moscow, an association football club * HC Spartak Moscow, a professional ice hockey team * Spartak GM Moscow, a semi-professional rugby club * WB ...

and the Luxembourg national team.

Club career

Martins is a youth exponent from

Racing FC Racing Fussball Club Union Luxembourg ( lb, Racing Fussball Club Union Lëtzebuerg), usually abbreviated to Racing-Union, is a football club based in Luxembourg City in southern Luxembourg. The etymology of the name originates from Racing Club ...

Luxembourg City Luxembourg ( lb, Lëtzebuerg; french: Luxembourg; german: Luxemburg), also known as Luxembourg City ( lb, Stad Lëtzebuerg, link=no or ; french: Ville de Luxembourg, link=no; german: Stadt Luxemburg, link=no or ), is the capital city of the Lu ...

. He transferred to the Lyon Academy in 2013. Martins made his

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

debut on 10 September 2017 in a

Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. A ...

match against Guingamp. He started the match and was replaced by

Jordan Ferri Jordan Ferri (born 12 March 1992) is a French professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Montpellier. He principally plays as a defensive midfielder and is known for his passing ability. Career Ferri made his debut in the Europa Leag ...

after 51 minutes in a 2–1 home win. Christopher Martins Pereira 2018

In June 2019 he signed for Swiss club Young Boys. He won both the 2019-20 and

2020-21 The hyphen-minus is the most commonly used type of hyphen, widely used in digital documents. It is the only character that looks like a minus sign or a dash in many character sets such as ASCII or on most keyboards, so it is also used as such. ...

Swiss Super Leagues with the club. On 31 January 2022, he joined Russian giants

on a short-term loan. In their announcement of the transfer, Young Boys said that Spartak was expected to buy him out at the conclusion of the loan. Martins won the Russian Cup on 29 May 2022, with him starting in the 2-1

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

victory against

Dynamo Moscow MGO VFSO "Dynamo" (russian: МГО ВФСО «Динамо»), commonly known as Dynamo Moscow (russian: Динамо Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. Founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky on 18 April 1923, Dynamo Moscow was the first ...

in what is known as the

Oldest Russian derby The Oldest Russian derby is a football rivalry played between Moscow rivals FC Spartak Moscow and FC Dynamo Moscow. The derby became less intense as Dynamo Moscow has not won a title since 1976 and only once succeeded in domestic competitions s ...

. On 3 June 2022, Spartak confirmed Martins' permanent transfer, and his signing until 2026.

International career

Martins represented Luxembourg at youth international levels, playing for them in the under-17, under-19, and under-21 age groups. Martins was eligible to represent

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

as he holds a French passport. He was eligible to represent both

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

and

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

at international level; he rejected a call-up from Luxembourg's senior team in March 2013 as he had not decided which nation he wished to represent. After being called up again by Luxembourg, he made his debut on 8 September 2014, at the age of 17.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Luxembourg's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Martins goal''.

Honours

Young Boys *

Swiss Super League The Swiss Super League (known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a Swiss professional league in the top tier of the Swiss football league system and has been played in its current format since the 2003–04 season ...

: 2019–20 *

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

: 2019–20 Spartak Moscow * Russian Cup: 2021–22

References

1997 births Sportspeople from Luxembourg City Luxembourgian people of Cape Verdean descent Living people Men's association football midfielders Luxembourgian footballers Luxembourg men's youth international footballers Luxembourg men's under-21 international footballers Luxembourg men's international footballers Racing FC Union Luxembourg players Olympique Lyonnais players Football Bourg-en-Bresse Péronnas 01 players ES Troyes AC players BSC Young Boys players FC Spartak Moscow players Luxembourg National Division players Championnat National 2 players Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players Swiss Super League players Swiss 1. Liga (football) players Russian Premier League players Luxembourgian expatriate footballers Luxembourgian expatriate sportspeople in France Expatriate footballers in France Luxembourgian expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Expatriate footballers in Switzerland Luxembourgian expatriate sportspeople in Russia Expatriate footballers in Russia {{Luxembourg-footy-bio-stub