Newcomer for the DFB women
Will she be Germany’s new top scorer?
October 24, 2025 – 12:36 p.mReading time: 3 minutes
She had an exciting year in England. Now Shekiera Martinez is with the DFB women for the first time. Will your rapid rise continue?
She was registered for training for the first time 13 years ago, and today Shekiera Martinez is one of the three newcomers to the German women’s national team squad. The 24-year-old from Fulda is in national coach Christian Wück’s squad for the first time and could already play a role in the first semi-final of the Nations League.
Martinez took it calmly that her possible debut would be against a top opponent like France. “I have been in the stadium so many times as a spectator when the senior national team played,” she said in an interview with the DFB beforehand. “Being there now is definitely a big dream come true.”
Just a year ago, Martinez was playing on loan for SC Freiburg. She has since developed into one of the most striking German attackers abroad in England at West Ham United.
It all started on the streets of Fulda-Neuenberg. In 2012 her mother registered her with Haimbacher SV. Her first coach, Thomas Merz, still remembered clearly: “Wow, that girl is good,” he thought at the time. “Such a shot, such assertiveness, so much energy,” he told the “Fuldaer Zeitung”.
Martinez played with boys early on, often against older people. Dueling in tight spaces against physically stronger opponents shaped her style: direct, powerful, with a consistent move towards the goal. After a year and a half in Haimbach, FV Horas and SV Brillezell followed – stations that made their name known in East Hesse.
At the age of 15, she moved to the youth department of what was then 1. FFC Frankfurt, which later merged with Eintracht Frankfurt. There she encountered professional structures, national players and an environment that shaped her both athletically and personally. “The international experience, the many games against top nations, definitely helped me a lot,” she said looking back.
In the summer of 2024, Martinez took the next step and moved to West Ham United in the English Premier League. Initially loaned to SC Freiburg, she scored five goals in the first half of the season before West Ham brought her back in the winter. The club was in the bottom of the table, but Martinez worked straight away: ten goals in twelve games, voted Player of the Months for March and April and, at the end, named “Rising Star” of the season.