Karim David Adeyemi (born 18 January 2002) is a German 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 lea ...

who plays as a winger or

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

for club

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, often known simply as Borussia Dortmund () or by its initialism BVB (), or just Dortmund by International fans, is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is ...

and the Germany national team.

Club career

Red Bull Salzburg

Adeyemi played as a youth for TSV Forstenried, and at the age of eight he joined local

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

side

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...

youth academy In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team if they show en ...

in 2010. Due to an impasse in negotiating his continued stay at the club, there was a dispute and Adeyemi eventually had to leave the club, which meant that he joined

SpVgg Unterhaching Spielvereinigung Unterhaching () is a German sports club in Unterhaching, a semi-rural municipality on the southern outskirts of the Bavarian capital Munich. The club is widely known for playing in the first-division association football league ...

in 2012. After progressing through the youth departments, he made his debut in March 2018 for the U19 team in the '' A-Junioren-Bundesliga'' (Under 19 Bundesliga). He scored his first goal in this league in April 2018 in a 2–3 loss to Eintracht Frankfurt U19. With Unterhaching, he suffered relegation to the '' A-Jugend Bayernliga'' (Under 19 Bayernliga) at the end of the season. Prior to the 2018–19 season, Adeyemi was signed by Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg where he signed a three-year contract. He was subsequently loaned out to their

feeder club In sports, a farm team (also referred to as farm system, developmental system, feeder team, or nursery club) is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful pl ...

FC Liefering FC Liefering GmbH is an Football in Austria, Austrian association football club, originally from Salzburg#Districts, Liefering, Salzburg. It currently plays in the Austrian Football Second League, Second League, the second tier of Austrian f ...

for the season. Adeyemi made his 2. Liga debut on 1 September 2018 against Austria Lustenau, where he played the full game as Liefering lost 1–0. On 1 December 2020, he scored his first Champions League goal in a 3–1 away win over

Lokomotiv Moscow FC Lokomotiv Moscow (, ) is a Russian professional association football, football club based in Moscow. Lokomotiv have won the Russian Premier League on three occasions; the Soviet Cup twice; and the Russian Cup (football), Russian Cup a record ...

during the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

season.

Borussia Dortmund

On 10 May 2022, Adeyemi was announced to have joined

club

on a deal until the summer of 2027. On 5 October, he scored his first Champions League goal with Borussia Dortmund in a 4–1 away win over

Sevilla Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Seville ...

. On 4 February 2023, he was recorded as the Bundesliga's fastest-ever player at during a match against

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

. Later that month, on 15 February, he scored the only goal from a solo strike in a 1–0 victory over Chelsea in the Champions League round of 16 first leg. On 30 March 2024, he scored the opening goal in a 2–0 away win over

, to be his club's first victory in Der Klassiker since 2019 and the first win at

Allianz Arena Allianz Arena (; known as Munich Football Arena for UEFA competitions) is a Association football, football stadium in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, with a 70,000 seating capacity for international matches and 75,000 for domestic matches. Widely kno ...

in 10 years. On 1 October 2024, he scored his first hat-trick in the Champions League in a 7–1 home win over

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

, becoming the third player in Dortmund history next to

Robert Lewandowski Robert Lewandowski (; born 21 August 1988) is a Polish professional Association football, footballer who plays as a Striker (association football), striker for club FC Barcelona, Barcelona. Widely regarded as one of the greatest strikers of a ...

and

Marco Reus Marco Reus (; born 31 May 1989) is a German professional association football, footballer who plays as a Forward (association football), forward for Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy. Reus spent his youth career at Borussia Dortmund, prior to l ...

to score a hat-trick for Dortmund in the Champions League.

International career

Adeyemi was born in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany, to a Nigerian father and Romanian mother. He is a youth international for Germany, having represented the Germany under-16s, under-17s and under-21s. He made his debut for the Germany senior team in a 6–0

2022 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification was the FIFA World Cup qualification, qualifying process which decided the 31 teams that would join hosts Qatar national football team, Qatar, who received an automatic spot, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Par ...

win over

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

on 5 September 2021, coming on as a late substitute and scoring his side's sixth goal in the first minute of second-half injury time. As Adeyemi was a Red Bull Salzburg player on his debut, this marked the first time in the post-war period that a player from an Austrian club played a match for the German senior national team. In November 2022, he was named in the German squad for the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the 22nd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...

in Qatar. However, he did not feature in any match, as Germany were knocked out at the group stage.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''As of match played 23 March 2025. Germany score listed first, score column indicates score after each Adeyemi goal.''

Honours

Borussia Dortmund *

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

runner-up: 2023–24 Red Bull Salzburg *

Austrian Bundesliga The Bundesliga ( , "Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Austria and the highest level of the Austrian football league system. The competition decides the A ...

: 2019–20,

, 2021–22 *

Austrian Cup The Austrian Cup (), known as UNIQA ÖFB Cup for sponsorship purposes, is an annual football competition held by the Austrian Football Association, the ÖFB. During the 2008–09 season, Austria Wien won the tournament for a record 27th time. Wo ...

: 2019–20,

, 2021–22 Germany U21 *

UEFA European Under-21 Championship The UEFA European Under-21 Championship, the UEFA Under-21 Championship or simply the Euro Under-21, is a biennial football competition contested by the European men's under-21 national teams of the UEFA member associations. Since 1992, the comp ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

Individual *

Fritz Walter Medal The Fritz Walter Medal is a series of annual awards given by the German Football Association to youth footballers in Germany. First awarded in 2005, it is named in honour of Fritz Walter, captain of West Germany's 1954 FIFA World Cup-winning team ...

U19 Gold:

U17 Gold:

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

Top scorer: 2021–22 *

Team of the Year: 2021–22 *

Rookie of the Month: January 2023 *

Rookie of the Season:

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

* IFFHS Men's World Youth (U20) Team: 2022

References

External links

Profile
at the Borussia Dortmund website * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Adeyemi, Karim 2002 births Living people German sportspeople of Nigerian descent German people of Romanian descent Yoruba sportspeople Footballers from Munich German men's footballers Men's association football forwards SpVgg Unterhaching players FC Red Bull Salzburg players FC Liefering players Borussia Dortmund players Austrian Football Bundesliga players 2. Liga (Austria) players Bundesliga players Germany men's youth international footballers Germany men's under-21 international footballers Germany men's international footballers 2022 FIFA World Cup players German expatriate men's footballers German expatriate sportspeople in Austria Expatriate men's footballers in Austria 21st-century German sportsmen