FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — In Philadelphia, it’s football season, it’s almost the baseball playoffs, and it’s always a good time to talk about LeBron James.
But amid all that, an unexpected question rises these days on Broad Street. And as it happens, the same question is rising around the soccer world.
How has a 16-year-old from Northeast Philadelphia seized so many headlines?
The answer is simple: Cavan Sullivan has earned it.
Yes, he’s an amazing talent. Yes, he already has enough marketing deals to make players twice his age blush, including one with Adidas that has set him up with superstars like Lionel Messi and Trinity Rodman.
But that talent alone — never mind the hype — wouldn’t have seen Sullivan score six goals in the Union’s last six games, or have the team’s second-most scoring chances created despite ranking ninth in minutes played.
No, those moments happened because of what got him on the field in the first place. Interim Union manager Ryan Richter described that part perfectly after the big win in San Diego earlier this month, when Sullivan’s backheel goal exploded online.
“He trains like an animal every single day,” Richter said. “His outstanding quality is the mentality that he has, and the way that he approaches every game and every day, and that’s what pushes him to get better and better.”
A few minutes later, Sullivan was told of those words, and was asked what it meant to hear them.
“I always appreciate when stuff like that’s acknowledged, so thank you to him,” he said. “I think that’s just sort of, like, my DNA in a way. I think it’s sort of how I’m wired. But always great to have people like him acknowledge it.”
There are moments when Sullivan comes across as an already-polished product of three generations of Philadelphia soccer royalty. But there are also still moments where you see the rawness of a 16-year-old, and this was one.
Comparisons to Freddy Adu aren’t fair
If Sullivan plays in any of the U.S. team’s four upcoming friendlies, he’ll become the youngest senior men’s national team player since Freddy Adu in 2006.
Around the soccer world, Sullivan gets compared to other young phenoms, such as Arsenal and England’s Max Dowman and Spain and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal. (Not for nothing did Adidas, which markets all three of them, recently bring Sullivan and Dowman together for a photo shoot where Sullivan had one of the Union’s new third jerseys.)
But for some people in this country, the most significant comparison goes in a less optimistic direction: to Adu.
In 2004, Adu arrived on the scene as a 14-year-old already crowned as destined to be the greatest American men’s player of all time. He took the field with D.C. United back then carrying the hopes of MLS at a time when it was desperate for any kind of recognition.
The recognition came, including a TV ad featuring Adu and Pelé. But the on-field accomplishments didn’t. Adu fell far short of his potential, despite seemingly countless opportunities over a 17-year career.
Looking back, we can now see why. It wasn’t just that he was swallowed up by the hype. It’s that so much of the infrastructure that has helped Sullivan grow didn’t exist in Adu’s teenage years.
MLS teams didn’t have youth academies back then, from the Union’s unparalleled scale — to frankly any scale. Fans might think about the first-team staff and sometimes the reserve-team coaches, but the dozens of youth team coaches and high school teachers that fill the club’s Chester complex who work outside the spotlight are immeasurable.
Adu didn’t have any of that when he grew up. He went straight into the first team at 14, and that was it. MLS could barely even accommodate a legal minor in some facilities back then, and its reserve league didn’t start until a year after Adu’s pro debut.
Now the league knows what it’s doing, with systems in place to accommodate what has become a years-long pipeline of elite young talent. Sullivan is just one example, and quite a few of them have made the current U.S. roster.
Few players know this more than one of the national team’s best, Tyler Adams. He rose through Red Bull New York’s youth and pro ranks, moved to Europe after three years in MLS, and now flies the flag for Americans in the English Premier League.
This week, the 27-year-old is one of the veterans welcoming the debutants.
“Prospect is a great word, but they’re doing it at a high level right now,” he said. “And then for me, as a product of MLS and a kid that came through MLS, you have to respect the league and the level that they’re playing at, at such a young age, because you’re competing against grown men. … You just have to do things in the right order, and we’re giving them the best opportunity to do that now.”
Confident? Yes. Cocky? No.
There’s one more point to make about Sullivan. Outsiders call him cocky, and he can be: from stepover dribbles to the flashy outfits he wears at Subaru Park on game days. But what athlete doesn’t have an ego?
You have to have one to become elite in sports, whether Bryce Harper or LeBron James or Carli Lloyd.
Of course, Sullivan hasn’t yet achieved what those three have, and whether he will remains to be seen. But he has an outstanding support system that keeps him in check at the right times, from his family at home, including his older brother and teammate, Quinn Sullivan, to team captain Alejandro Bedoya, and Ryan Richter in the Union locker room. You can be sure they all got him ready for this week as best they could.
Beyond that, we can’t know how this Union season will end up, with a bunch of tough games coming next month; and it’s impossible to know what will happen when Cavan joins Manchester City at the end of next year.
Will he actually play for the English giant, or get loaned out repeatedly — the fate that past Americans suffered in England, including Downingtown’s Zack Steffen at City and Media’s Auston Trusty at Arsenal?
It’s easy to spend time and energy fretting about those questions. Right now, though, can be a moment to put them aside.
Just as Union fans have allowed themselves to simply enjoy the team’s renaissance, they can sit back and enjoy this national team window for Sullivan, Neil Pierre, and Frankie Westfield. The games are friendlies, so results matter less than seeing how the players handle their first steps on the senior national team stage.
The last word goes to Adams, since he delivered on this subject as well as he does with so many things.
“If anybody remembers me when I was 16, 17 years old, I came in and I wasn’t afraid to step on people’s toes, but I was very keen on doing the work and making sure that I could earn the respect of the older players,” he said. “That’s always super-important as you try to build this group out. We have a lot of bright talent here, but it’s important that we all work hard and help get the best growth out of all of them.”
Jonathan Tannenwald
