Lieke Martens Biography

is a professional English player who is currently playing as a midfield for FC Barcelona football club and Netherlands national team. Over the past ten years, Martens has established himself as one of the world's best female footballers.

Martens reached stat status with her brilliant performances for FC Barcelona and the Netherlands national team. She started her career at Standard Liege and won the BeNe Super Cup in 2011, followed by another successful spell, this time at FC Rosengard in which she won 2 titles.

Marten's biggest breakthrough came in 2017, when she joined Barcelona after winning the FIFA best female player award for guiding Netherlands to the European Championship title. She was the competition's best player and top scorer.

Martens has won many titles during his time with the Catalans including the Primera Division title in the 2019–20 season. They also reached the final of the Champions League that season but lost the title to

.

Lieke Martens is one of the most popular female footballers in the world. She has been nicknamed as 'the female Messi' for her amazing dribbling skills. As of March 2021, Lieke Martens has scored 108 goals in 259 matches during his professional career. Stay tuned to read more about

Lieke Martens

biography and professional life.

All You Need to Know about Lieke Martens Biography

In the following article, we will have a look at

Lieke Martens life story

which includes her career and personal life. We will go deep into every aspect of her personal and professional life to see why she is considered as one of the best midfields in women football.

Lieke Martens Information

We will start our article on Lieke Martens biography with some of her general information including her bio, physical stats, personal info and footballing information. Stay tuned to read more about Lieke Martens bio.

Lieke Martens Bio

• Full Name:

  Lieke Elisabeth Petronella Martens

• Nickname:

  the female Messi

• Profession:

  Professional Footballer

Lieke Martens Physical Stats

• Weight:

  65Kg

• Height:

  1. 70m (5 ft.7 in)

• Eye Color:

  Black

• Hair Color:

  light Brown

Lieke Martens Football Information

• Position:

  Midfield

• Jersey Number:

  22 at FC Barcelona and Netherlands National team

• Professional Debut:

  2009

Lieke Martens Date of Birth and Personal Info

• Date of Birth:

  16 December 1992

• Birth Place:

  Bergen, Netherlands

• Zodiac Sign:

  Sagittarius

• Nationality:

  Dutch

Lieke Martens Early Life

In this section of our article about Lieke Martens biography we will present you with the most interesting facts about

Lieke Martens childhood

as well as her family background to see where she took her first steps as an amateur footballer.

Lieke Martens date of birth is at the 16th day of December 1992. It is interesting that she shares her birthday with the German famous footballer,

who is also born on the 16th of December.

Lieke Martens nationality

is Dutch. She was born into a football-loving family from Bergen, Netherlands. Lieke Martens' parents were both football fans and supported their daughter on the early stages of her career.

Martens was a spirited child. Her childhood was all about football. According to her interviews, she was 'that typical annoying sister' who always wanted to be in the boys teams. As a child, she was mocked many times for her goal to become a professional player one day, but she never gave up and ultimately made her dreams come true with hard work and determination.

A lot of people were laughing at me when I was young and I said I wanted to be a professional footballer, they said it was only for boys. But women’s football was really growing. When I got an invitation to play for the national team under-15 side I felt this is really what I love. People used to laugh at me, but now I can laugh at them.”

Lieke Martens is famous for her dribbling skills and according to herself, she forced to improve her dribbling to be able to play with boys who were physically stronger than her. It also meant that she would get kicked a lot during games.

“I think until 12 or 13 years a girl and a boy is the same but when I got older I felt they got more physical, they were stronger and faster so I had to be more clever, I had to take one or two touches instead of dribbling all the time,”

“My team mates knew what I could do so they were really happy I was on their team. But the opponents would say ‘Oh no there’s a girl, she can’t play football’. Even their parents would shout at me. I got kicked more because the boys didn’t like when I dribbled past them. It made me stronger, I wanted to show them girls could play football.”

Martens' idol during her childhood years was the Brazilian legendary player, Ronaldinho, who also had a big impact on her determination to become an excellent dribbler.

“I started playing football at the age of five and I don’t think I’ve stopped since. I wanted to be like Ronaldinho and tried to copy his tricks in my back garden. To have been able to wear the same FC Barcelona colors as my hero still makes me smile every time I think about it. Football has become my life and I want to share that life with you. He was the only one who had a ponytail so he looked a little bit like a girl. He was an amazing player, he was a great finisher and he enjoyed football so much, he was laughing all the time.”

Martens impressed right from the start of his footballing journey. In 2009, Martens was signed by Heerenveen, which marked the start of her professional career at the age of 17. She was also a member of Netherlands youth teams during his teenage years and shone in the 2010 U-19 European Championship, at which was the joint top scorer with four goals alongside

.

Lieke Martens Profile

In This part of the article, we will concentrate on Lieke Martens profile which includes her style of play, goal celebration and the reception she has received from media, fans and his colleagues.

Starting her professional career at Heerenveen

Lieke Martens started her professional career in 2005 at Heerenveen. She famously scored a brace in her professional debut game and went on to perform in 18 games during her only season with the Dutch club.

Moving to Belgium Pro League

 The following season, Martens moved to Belgium Pro League to play for VVV-Venlo. She scored 9 goals in 20 matches during the 2010-11 season and was one of the best players of the league.

Successful spells at Standard Liege and Duisburg

Next stop for Martens was Standard Liege. She scored two goals in her debut for Standard Liege to help win her first major title, the BeNe Super Cup. Overall, Martens scored 17 goals in 25 matches and had one of the best seasons of her career to that point.

The creative Dutch player then moved to play for

in the Bundesliga from 2012 to 2014. She continued to impress fans and critics as she scored 7 goals in 30 matches across all competitions. 

Breaking her own scoring record at Rosengard

Martens played some of her best footballs in the 2016-17 season with Rosengard. She scored an incredible 20 goals in 29 games. Her amazing performances paved the way for her to join Europe's biggest clubs and it was Barcelona who eventually signed her in the summer of 2017.

Moving to Barcelona

Martens signed for

in July 2017. She made her debut for the club as a substitute in a 9–0 win against Zaragoza and scored her first goal in a 10–0 win over Santa Teresa.

Martens was rewarded for her unbelievable form at the end of the year when she was voted as UEFA Women's Player of the Year and FIFA Women's Player of the Year, one year before France Football decided to give a Ballon d'Or to female players.

Martens helped FC Barcelona reach the final of the UEFA Women's Champions League in her second season. They lost the final 4–1 to Olympique Lyonnais but Martens further stablished herself as one of the world's best players.

As of March 2021, Lieke Martens has scored 29 goals for Barcelona in 67 formal matches across all competitions. Her market value is at 5 million Euros. She is ranked among the top five Barcelona players with the highest market value.

International career with the Netherlands

Lieke Martens was a member of Netherland U19 team. She was the top scorer of the 2010 U-19 European Championships, tied at four goals with Turid Knaak. In August 2011 she debuted for the

senior team, in a friendly match against China.

In June 2013 Martens represented the Netherlands at the UEFA Women's Euro 2013 in Sweden and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada, where she scored the country's first ever World Cup goal.

Martens scored three goals in The Netherlands title winning 2017 UEFA Women's Euro campaign. For her impressive performances, Martens was voted in the 2017 UEFA Team of the Tournament and won the Bronze Boot as well as the Golden Ball award for the best player of the tournament.

Martens was also instrumental for Netherlands in the 2019 World Cup and scored 1 goal against Japan.  However, she was suffering from minor injuries in the tournament and without her magic, Netherlands could not reach the latter stages of the competition.

As of March 2021, Lieke Martens has played 120 games for Netherlands and has scored 48 goals.

Style of Play

Lieke Martens is known the most for her amazing dribbling abilities, goal scoring instincts as well as his team play and passing qualities. She has been one of the World best female footballers in the past decade. Martens is often praised for her incredible dribbling skills and her ability to threat the opposition's goal with his trickery and passing skills. She is cool under pressure and can perform at the highest level. These qualities have given her the leadership skills she is also famous for.

Martens has been compared to Lionel Messi because of her eye-catching technique and dribbling qualities. She has been nicknamed

of the Women's football and has also appeared alongside the Argentinian in many advertisements. Martens can threaten defenses as an inverted winger on the left flank, or as a forward, where she can unsettle central defenders with her pace.

Reception

Lieke Martens received praise from many footballing figures for her amazing performances in the 2017 UEFA Women's Euro. She has won many awards during her career and is considered as a role models in women's football. Her accomplishments has inspired many young girls, especially in Netherlands to pursue a career in football.

In 2018, Forbes ranked her Number 22 in their "Most Powerful Women in International Sports" list. Martens is the first women’s player to be on the poster of Camp Nou. She has reacted to her amazing success in a modest way:

“Dreams are funny things, aren’t they? Why do we dream what we dream? For instance, you could say this past year has been a dream come true for me. Winning the Euros at home in Holland and becoming the player of the tournament. Signing for Barcelona, my favorite club. Sharing a plane with Lionel Messi”

“When I go back home people ask for autographs and pictures, that’s fine because I always wanted that recognition, I worked hard for it. But I needed a bit of time to get used to it because it went from nothing to everything.”

She has also has talked about how much it means to her that her career has been inspiring for young girls who are passionate about football.

“I’m really happy I can inspire those little girls and let them see what you can do if you work for it”

“

They have a dream now, they can see these big clubs with women’s teams, like

, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. When I was young I wanted to play for Barca or Ajax but they didn’t exist.

(From Lieke Martens interview with Reuters)

“I really feel I have that role now and I want to show girls what they can achieve. I think we all want to be role models for them. My dream didn’t exist when I was young, but now little girls are starting to play football and they have their dream of wanting to play professionally and that’s amazing.”

(From Lieke Martens interview with Forbes)

Goal Celebration

Lieke Martens does not have a special goal celebration and has celebrated her goals in different ways. 

Lieke Martens outside football

Lieke Martens has a normal life outside of football. Her favorite hobbies are going on stag-dos and making homemade pasta. She is also active regularly on social media. Lieke Martens Instagram account

) has around 1.2 million followers. Her twitter account has around 100k followers.

Lieke Martens enjoys playing video games. Her FIFA 21 rating is 89. She is at the 12st highest rating among female footballers in FIFA21.

Lieke has signed endorsement deals with several brands including Nike. She also signed a Memorabilia Deal with Icons.com.

Martens published her auto-biography in 2019 which is titled 'Lieke' and is in the Dutch language.

Lieke Martens Personal Life

One of the most interesting part of SportMob's article on

Lieke Martens biography

is about her personal life. In this section we will have a look at Lieke Martens immediate family, love life and children. We will also present you with some information about his philanthropy activities and legal issues.

Family, Children and Relationships

Lieke Martens was born at 9th day of May 1989 into a middle-class football-loving family from Aylesbury district in Netherlands.

Lieke Martens family members have continued to support her since her childhood years to this day. They usually attend Ellen's games and were in the stands as she made history with Netherlands national team in the 2017 UEFA Women's European championships.

Lieke Martens boyfriend is

, a professional Dutch goalkeeper who is playing for the

 and is of Moluccan descent. They first started dating in July 2018, one year after Lieke arrived at Barcelona.

The couple have had a solid relationship in the past two years and have supported each other in their careers. Judging from their social media accounts, they are fond of traveling and are quite adventurous. Benjamin van Leer is active in social media. His Instagram account, (@bvanleer1992) has around 54k followers.

Martens does not have a child and still wants to concentrate on her footballing career. Any new information about Lieke Martens relationships will be published here at SportMob.

Philanthropy

It is really interesting to know if Lieke Martens has had any background in humanitarian work and philanthropy.

Lieke Martens religion

is Christianity. There are no information on Lieke Martens' involvement in any big charity event. However, she has given some of her jerseys to charity websites.

Legal Issues

While some footballers have certainly gotten into legal disputes with various people and organizations, Lieke Martens has had no legal disputes throughout her life.

Lieke Martens Career Statistics

In this section, we want to take a look at Lieke Martens career statistics both on the club and international level.

Club

Overall, Lieke Martens has played 260 games for 6 clubs during his career. she has registered 108 goals in her club career.

Lieke Martens best season individually was the 2016-17 Season in which she scored 20 goals in 29 games for Rosengard across all competitions.

International

On the international level Lieke Martens career stats shows that she has scored 48 goal in his 120 games for Netherland. Lieke Martens was also a member of Netherland U19 team and in total scored 8 goals in 27 games.

Lieke Martens Honors

We rap up our article on

Lieke Martens biography

with a look at her honors and achievements.

Lieke Martens celebrated his first major trophy in the 2010-11 season when he won the newly founded BeNe Super Cup with Standard Liege. While his first individual award was the UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award in 2017.

Lieke Martens' last collective achievement was winning the Supercopa Femenina title in 2020, while her last individual award was winning the IFFHS UEFA Woman Team of the Decade 2011–2020.

Below is the complete list of Lieke Martens's honors:

With Standard Liege:

BeNe Super Cup: Winner 2011

With FC Rosengard:

Svenska Cupen: Winner 2015–16 / Svenska Supercupen: Winner 2016

With FC Barcelona:

Primera División: Winner, 2019–20/ UEFA Women's Champions League: Runner-up, 2018–19/ Copa de la Reina de Futbol: Winner, 2018/ Supercopa Femenina: Winner, 2020/ Copa Catalunya: Winner, 2017, 2018 and 2019

With Netherland national team:

UEFA Women's European Championship: Winner 2017/ Algarve Cup: 2018

Individual awards and records:

UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award: 2017/ The Best FIFA Women's Player: 2017/ FIFPro World XI: 2017/ UEFA Women's Euro 2017: Player of the Tournament/ UEFA Women's Euro 2017: UEFA Team of the Tournament/ The 100 Best Female Footballers In The World Winner: 2017/ IFFHS UEFA Woman Team of the Decade 2011–2020

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