His father, André Kana-Biyik, won 80 caps for Cameroon. His older brother, Jean-Armel, also played for the national team, retiring in 2022 after a career that took in Rennes, Toulouse, Metz and a spell in Turkey. His younger brother, Lorenzo, is coming through Paris Saint-Germain's academy. Enzo, signed by Manchester United from Le Havre in the summer of 2025 and immediately loaned to Swiss side Lausanne-Sport, has spent his first year in senior football trying to build his own name inside that family.
His exit from Le Havre came quickly in the end. Head coach Didier Digard had named him in his matchday squad twice that season, against Lille in Ligue 1 and Stade Briochin in the Coupe de France, without giving him a single minute. Monaco and Marseille both circled — L'Equipe reported OM even invited him for a tour of their Commanderie training centre — before Manchester United moved decisively, agreeing personal terms and a fee with Le Havre despite the Normandy club's hopes of extending his contract.
It wasn't a straightforward first season once he arrived in Switzerland. A knee injury picked up at the end of pre-season delayed his start, and by the time he scored his first senior goal — in a 2-2 derby draw with FC Sion in November — he'd already spent weeks watching from the sidelines.
"At the start, pre-season had gone well," Kana-Biyik told Le Matin. "Then, unfortunately, there was this injury which delayed me a bit, slowed me down... But during that time, I prepared myself well.
"I had to be mentally strong, because it wasn't easy watching my team-mates play. You're at the stadium and the only thing you want to do is play, play, play."
The Sion match brought its own strange twist. Kana-Biyik scored — possibly twice, with the first initially credited to team-mate Sekou Fofana — only to be substituted at half-time by head coach Peter Zeidler, with a France Under-19 call-up looming. He took it with a maturity beyond his years.
"Of course, at first, you don't necessarily understand," he said. "Especially when you've just scored a goal five or ten minutes before half-time. But well, I've got the national team call-up coming up and the coach had his reasons. I can only respect his choices."
Zeidler, for his part, didn't pretend it was an easy conversation.
"When I told him he was coming off at half-time, he found it hard to believe," the Lausanne coach told 24 heures. "He was really disappointed."
Zeidler couldn't resist a dig at his opposite number afterwards, either, given the two French nationals' shared background.
"Enzo's playing for the France team next week, Didier," he joked to Sion coach Didier Tholot. "With the Under-19s!"
More seriously, Zeidler set out what he wanted from his young striker in the weeks ahead: "We hope Enzo will score us goals between now and Christmas, with all the matches coming up."
Explaining his decision to leave France for Switzerland at just 18, Kana-Biyik pointed to the standard of the league rather than any easier route into first-team football.
"What mattered to me in coming here was that Switzerland was a good level, with teams like Basel, Young Boys or Lausanne-Sport," he said. "These are teams that play well. I hadn't necessarily thought about the national team before coming here. What matters most to me first is playing."
That national team, when it called, is where he actually thrived. While his Lausanne minutes stayed scarce, Kana-Biyik was prolific for France Under-19s: a hat-trick against Switzerland, a goal against the Netherlands, then the winner against Bulgaria — five goals in four appearances, enough to keep 1998 World Cup winner Bernard Diomède picking him throughout a season when his club form gave little indication of it.
In the end, the Christmas goals at club level never really arrived. Kana-Biyik finished his Lausanne loan with a single Super League goal and one assist — the latter in a Conference League tie against Fiorentina — from 17 appearances, most of them off the bench.
Lausanne thanked him publicly on social media as the loan concluded in May, and he has now reported to Carrington for his first pre-season with Manchester United, with the club yet to decide whether he joins the first-team group or the Under-21s. A product of academy football between Epinay, Brunoy, Bretigny and Le Havre, he is still only 19.
Whatever happens next, Kana-Biyik has already shown, in his own words to Swiss and French media, that he understands the job in front of him. Scoring goals is one thing. Doing it with the family name on his back, and the patience to accept a manager's decision even when it stings, is another.