Euro 2025: Iman Beney, the revelation of the Swiss team

The disheveled cavalcades right side of Iman Beney (18) vibrate the Swiss supporters, who count on the energy of one of their pampers to shake up Spain in the quarter -finals of Euro 2025 Friday evening (9 p.m.) in Bern.

Tireless, pugnacious in defense and bleeding in counterattack, Valais has not yet marked in 14 selections but it hits a permanent danger, like its two big opportunities in the second match against Iceland (2-0).

Aligned right piston in the defense five of the nati, it often rises a notch when it is necessary to make the decision, thanks to an impressive versatility for a footballer who will be 19 years old on July 23, in the aftermath of the semi-final that Switzerland aims against the winner of France-Germany, even if Roja is largely favorite of their duel.

“When I set it out against England (Editor’s note: in December for a 1-0 defeat), I do not see the 18 -year -old player who is still evolving in her country, she is perfectly in her place, “the selector told the” time “by speaking of Iman Beney.

Pia Sundhage does not hesitate to change it, she even aligned it in attack in the League of Nations. But it is behind that she especially needs it, at the Euro. And the young woman quickly adapted. “Little by little, we see that it is better but I know that I still have to progress defensively,” she said of her new role.

She also impresses with her cash register. “I think I could have run again and again,” she smiled after the victory against Iceland. Frankly, it is a feeling of phew (sic) Because you say to yourself: “I’m unstoppable today”. “

The young prodigy was also amazed at the support of the public at home. “To say that they are there for us. When you arrive in the stadium, you have almost tears in your eyes, ”she says.

Iman Beney savoring all the more since she suffered a break in the knee ligaments a few days to fly to the 2023 World Cup in Oceania.

He has a whole career left to travel. Manchester City also spotted the talent of the Swiss selection knife and recruited it this summer. The gifted leaves Young Boys, with whom she has just been a Swiss champion. “It was time for me to go and discover something else and go abroad […] Continue my development, ”she comments.

Sundhage approves. “Talent, alone, does not lead anywhere. You have to work. But adults who believe in you and let you know, it can help, “said the double Olympic gold medalist at the head of the United States.

As Beney is a child of the ball, his family’s adults are also of good advice. His father Nicolas was a goalkeeper of Swiss hopes beaten in the 2002 Euro semi-finals by France of Mickaël Landreau. Eyes wet emotion, he tells the RTS the very beginnings of his daughter: “The day she received the letter from the town for children to start football school on the field, she jumped for joy because it was really what she wanted”.

In this team from his city of Savièse also played his great friend Naomi Luyet, still convalescent and great absent from the quintet of kids who represent the future of the Nati, with Sydney Schertenleib, Noemi Ivelj and Leila Wandeler, the oldest at the 19th of his 19!

His brother Roméo Beney has just passed professional at FC Basel and his aunt Noémie, talent manager at the ASF, is part of the framing of the Nati.

Only his mother did not have the round ball gene. “I wanted her to be a big dancer, but it did not play,” jokes Cléo Beney on the RTS, who had come to film the whole family for a friendly in Tourbillon before the Euro. There, many fans, girls and boys, asked for a selfie or an autograph from Iman Beney. “I become aware of his popularity,” said his mother. And it’s just starting.