Karim Adeyemi

The 22-year-old forward has been a Borussia Dortmund player since July 2022. As of June 2024 (the cut-off point for all statistics), he has made 66 appearances for BVB across all competitions (14 goals / eight assists).

Before his switch to the German Bundesliga, the young forward had collected three league titles and three cups in Austria, as well as finishing as the top scorer. Karim Adeyemi had therefore won everything there was to win domestically in the first three years of his professional career in Salzburg. On top of that, he won the European Championship with the Germany U21 national team in 2021.

In his first season in Black & Yellow, he played in 24 of the 34 Bundesliga matches, despite suffering a few injury setbacks. In the second half of the season, he was involved in an impressive 11 goals (six goals, five assists) and almost continued the medal winning in Dortmund where he had left off in Salzburg. Ultimately, however, he has – in inverted commas – “only” managed a runners-up finish twice: in the Bundesliga in 2023 and the UEFA Champions League in 2024.

“I like to use my speed a lot,” he said, describing his playing style. He thrives on the shoulder of the last defender, looking to exploit his sprinting qualities in the final third and use his pace to go past opponents time and time again. In the match against Freiburg on 4 February 2023, he clocked a top speed of 36.7 km/h – the highest speed measured since data began to be collected in 2011.

Karim Adeyemi was born in Munich on 18 January 2002 to a Nigerian father and a Romanian mother. In his childhood, he played basketball and volleyball in addition to football. At the age of eight, he joined the Bayern Munich U9s, but he returned to his first club, TSV Forstenried, only two years later. From 2012 to 2018, he played in the academy setup at SpVgg Unterhaching.

Austria's perennial title-winners Salzburg then secured the services of the highly talented young attacker, who was 16 years old at the time, for a handsome transfer fee. "I was a bit scared beforehand to leave home, but I was also happy to take the next step. It was important to me that I didn't go too far from home. It is only an hour and a half from Munich to Salzburg," he once said in an interview with “kicker” magazine.

At the same time, he was also eligible to play for Salzburg's cooperation partner FC Liefering in the Austrian second tier, and he immediately earned himself a regular place in the starting line-up. In the 2019/20 season, Adeyemi also played in nine out of 10 UEFA Youth League games for the Salzburg U19s. On 20 February 2020, he made his first-team debut as a substitute in the Europa League game away to Eintracht Frankfurt (a 4-1 defeat). His big breakthrough came in 2021/22, when he scored five times in his first three top-flight games, as well as in the important Champions League play-off first leg against Brøndby IF. With 19 goals in 29 games, he was the top scorer in the Austrian Bundesliga. In the UEFA Champions League, he scored three times in the group stage, helping Salzburg to reach the round of 16 in the competition for the first time. He bid goodbye to Austria with 33 goals in 91 matches in the top division and 15 goals in 35 games in the second tier.

“As a young boy, I was fascinated by the high-tempo football the Black & Yellows played. That's why it quickly became clear to me that I wanted to go to BVB as soon as I learned of the interest from Dortmund. I also deliberately signed a long-term contract because I am convinced that we will be an exciting team that, with the support of the fantastic Dortmund fans, will be able to challenge for and win titles in the medium term," the Munich-born striker said in the summer of 2022 after signing a contract until 30 June 2027.

He made his first appearance for the Germany senior national team on 5 September 2021, scoring the goal that rounded off the 6-0 victory over Armenia in a World Cup qualification match. He was part of the squad for the 2022 World Cup but did not get onto the pitch.