Iman Beney: Man City's Lauren James-like teen building on Euro 2025 breakout with Switzerland in the WSL

Beney was born in Yverdon-les-Bains, a picturesque town in French-speaking Switzerland, into a footballing family. Her father, Nicolas, is a former goalkeeper who represented seven clubs and won caps for the Switzerland youth teams, while her aunt, Noemie, won 45 caps for the senior women's team. Her older brother, Romeo, also currently plays for FC Basel.

Beney started playing the sport herself when she was eight years old, first with FC Saviese before arriving at Young Boys via spells with FC Sion and Saxon Sports. It was with the Bern club that she would get her senior breakthrough, impressing so much in her debut campaign that she was voted into the Swiss Women's Super League team of the season, aged 16.

At the same time, Beney was thriving in the Switzerland youth national teams, named to the best XI at the Under-17 Euros in 2023. Inka Grings, then head coach of the senior team, took great notice of her performances and called the teenager into camp a few weeks later, just before La Nati were heading to the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Beney took full advantage of the opportunity, too. Granted a debut in a friendly with Zambia, the versatile forward bagged an assist and was a surprise inclusion in Grings’ World Cup squad three days later. However, a devastating ACL tear in training the very next day robbed her of the chance to star at the tournament and sidelined her for a year.

Beney made up for that cruel turn of events this past summer. After missing the entire 2023-24 season, she was back with a bang for Young Boys in 2024-25, named to the Swiss league’s team of the season again after helping them win the title, and that form would be carried into the 2025 European Championships, which Switzerland hosted.

Named in La Nati’s starting XI for all of their four fixtures, Beney showcased her versatility as a full-back and wing-back as her team made it beyond the Euros group stages for the first time. Only Spain, the eventual finalists and reigning world champions, would end a run that had captured the hearts of the nation in the quarter-finals.

Fortunately for Man City, they had got a deal for Beney’s summer move to England done before the tournament began, otherwise they might’ve had a bit more competition for her signature, given she was one of the breakout stars of the summer.

Beney has clearly taken confidence from that huge experience, with there is plenty to like about how she has started her time in Manchester. After debuting on the opening weekend of the new season, in a narrow defeat to champions Chelsea, the teenager has looked more and more comfortable as each week has passed. That has culminated in her first goal involvements in City blue, with an assist in the League Cup win over Everton at the end of September followed up with that composed match-winner in victory over Arsenal.

“I’m so happy for her,” City boss Andree Jeglertz said after Beney’s first goal for the club. “She’s taken so many big steps, from moving to Switzerland and coming to this big club. There’s a lot of things going on just to do that but what she’s shown, I’m so impressed.”

Beney has all the traits that make a winger great. "She's fast, but not just from A to B, but also when changing direction, with or without the ball, and she can vary the pace,” Switzerland boss Pia Sundhage explained last year, referring to one of her main strengths. Perhaps unsurprisingly given her idolisation of Neymar, Beney has the skill to beat a marker as well as the speed, and despite being so young, her decision-making in the final third is quite advanced, no doubt thanks to the big experience she has already accumulated.

Another impressive element to Beney’s game was on show at the Euros, when she brought those qualities to a more defensive role. In an interview with Blue Sport, her father revealed that the teenager had little to no experience as a full-back, making her adaptation to the position all the more impressive. “As a 12-year-old, Iman played on the right side of defence, but only for one game, then she ended up in attack,” he explained.

To play so well there, then, highlighted Beney’s great athleticism, her team-first attitude and her footballing intelligence. With her also having played as a central striker in the past, the 19-year-old is certainly adding versatility to her game.

As someone with limited experience on the defensive side of the ball, there are improvements Beney can make in that area, with increased strength likely to come over time and better timing in a tackle to be developed through exposure to those duels. It must be said that it does feel unlikely that the teenager will spend too much of her career in the back line, as her potential in attack is just too great. However, little bits of progress in her out-of-possession attributes will help overall, meaning her tracking back from a forward role is helpful to the team and her ability to press also improves.

As is always the case with a young player, Beney’s decision making can still get better too, even if it is at an impressive level already, as can her finishing and crossing. But those are skills she is clearly taking strides in every day, to the point that she has been able to be an impactful player at a senior major tournament and in one of the game’s best leagues so early in her career.

It’s hard to make an obvious comparison to Beney as she is the type of winger who likes to drive into central areas rather than get to the byline and get crosses in, though she can do the latter, too. With that often making her more of a goal threat than most wingers, when combined with her excellent close control and ability to use both feet, there are some shades of Lauren James to her game, who is more of a goal-getter than a lot of the top wide players.

The England star is stronger in her duels than Beney is right now, not to mention a more finished product, but those are areas of her game that the Switzerland international can improve. There are also some similarities to Kerolin, her new Man City team-mate, particularly with her brilliant skill and her desire to stand up to markers and beat them with it.

It’s been a huge 2025 so far for Beney and the manner in which she has settled in at Man City suggests there is more to come. The 19-year-old isn’t an established starter just yet but she is sure to get her opportunities as the season progresses, especially with the club already dealing with one key injury out wide to Lauren Hemp. Once the England star is back fit, City will have some interesting combinations of wide players they can deploy, with Hemp and Aoba Fujino more of the touchline-hugging type, while Beney, Kerolin and even the versatile Grace Clinton can then complement that with an option that drifts more central.

It's not just about what Beney can do in Manchester, either. Qualifying for the 2027 Women’s World Cup will begin soon and the teenager is going to be a crucial player for Switzerland as they bid to book their tickets to Brazil. Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic and Ramona Bachmann are La Nati's two biggest names in attack but will be 36 and 35 years old, respectively, when that tournament rolls around, placing an emphasis on the younger prospects to start to make waves to ensure that the impending transition is a smooth one.

Fortunately, Bachmann, one of her country’s greatest women's players of all time, sees good things in Beney. “She is definitely the future of the national team,” she said when the teenager burst onto the scene. “She has the potential to have a career like mine."