Karim Adeyemi, born in Munich in 2002, joined Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund on 23 July 2026 on a five-year deal reportedly worth €29 million. He scored in the 65th minute of Barcelona’s 4-1 win at Galatasaray on 13 October 2026.
Karim David Adeyemi was born on 18 January 2002 in Munich, Germany, to a Nigerian father and a Romanian mother. He played as a youth for TSV Forstenried and at eight joined Bayern Munich’s youth academy in 2010. A dispute over his continued stay led him to leave and join SpVgg Unterhaching in 2012. He made his under-19 debut in March 2018, and after Unterhaching were relegated he signed for Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg ahead of 2018-19 on a three-year contract.
He was loaned to Salzburg’s feeder club FC Liefering for his first season, and made his 2. Liga debut on 1 September 2018 in a 1-0 loss to Austria Lustenau. On 1 December 2020 he scored his first Champions League goal in a 3-1 win at Lokomotiv Moscow. He won three Austrian Bundesliga titles and three Austrian Cups with Salzburg, and was top scorer of the Austrian Bundesliga in 2021-22.
On 10 May 2022 Borussia Dortmund announced his signing on a deal until the summer of 2027. He scored his first Champions League goal for Dortmund on 5 October 2022 in a 4-1 win at Sevilla, and on 4 February 2023 he was recorded as the Bundesliga’s fastest-ever player, at 36.65 km/h in a match against Freiburg. On 15 February 2023 he scored the only goal from a solo run in a 1-0 win over Chelsea in the Champions League last 16.
On 30 March 2024 he scored the opening goal in a 2-0 win at Bayern Munich, Dortmund’s first win at the Allianz Arena in ten years. He played in the 2024 Champions League final, which Dortmund lost 2-0 to Real Madrid. On 1 October 2024 he scored his first Champions League hat-trick in a 7-1 home win over Celtic, becoming the third Dortmund player after Robert Lewandowski and Marco Reus to score a hat-trick for the club in the competition.
For Germany he debuted on 5 September 2021 in a 6-0 World Cup qualifier against Armenia, scoring in injury time. He won the 2021 European Under-21 Championship, and was named in the 2022 World Cup squad but did not play. He returned to the senior squad in March 2025 and contributed to Germany’s qualification for the 2026 World Cup, though he was not included in the final 26.
His move to Barcelona came on 23 July 2026, and a month later, on 23 August, he scored on his debut in a 5-0 win at Elche. He scored his first Champions League goal for the club against Feyenoord on 9 September, and on Tuesday scored again, a left-footed finish from the left side of the box in the 65th minute, as Barcelona beat Galatasaray 4-1 after trailing 1-0. For a winger whose speed is his trademark, the move to Catalonia has already brought quick rewards.
Image: Karim Adeyemi applauding fans in Red Bull Salzburg kit (file photo). Photo: Werner100359 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
