At sixteen years and 363 days, Cavan Sullivan started a full international for the United States. The Philadelphia Union midfielder was in the side that beat Peru 4-1 on Saturday, which makes him the fourth youngest player ever to appear for his country, and he turns seventeen this month.
Manchester City have been waiting on this for two years. They tied up his future signing in 2024, when he was fourteen, and he cannot officially join them until a little over a year from now. In the meantime he has been quietly becoming one of the better players in Major League Soccer.
The numbers do not need help
Seven goals and five assists in MLS this season. Six of those goals and four of those assists arrived in August and September alone. Six goals in his last six games. Seven selections in the league's Team of the Matchday, three of them in a row.
Since the World Cup finished, his goal contribution rate sits alongside the names MLS puts on its posters, which is where the Lionel Messi comparisons start and where they should probably stop. There is a real argument that he has been the best player in the league over that stretch. That is a sentence worth making carefully about someone who was fourteen when City signed him.
A hometown team that turned its season around with him in it
Philadelphia won one of their first fifteen matches. One. They are now unbeaten in eleven, with nine wins, under interim coach Ryan Richter, and Sullivan's run of regular starts began at exactly the point the results changed. He has been used on the right of an attacking midfield line with licence to drift infield onto his left foot, and he holds his own physically in a league that does not go easy on teenagers.
Jonathan Tannenwald, chief soccer correspondent at the Philadelphia Inquirer, put the caution plainly to the BBC. American soccer has been here before with Freddy Adu and with Gedion Zelalem at Arsenal. Christian Pulisic came closest and had a poorer World Cup than he wanted; Gio Reyna never matched his own talent. What Tannenwald will say about Sullivan is that the work ethic matches the ability, and he quoted Richter on the point: the mentality is the outstanding quality, and it is what keeps pushing the player forward.
The complication nobody can plan around
Sullivan made his international debut the day after Manchester City were found guilty of breaching the majority of the 115 financial charges brought against them. The club are expected to appeal, and nobody knows what English football looks like by the time a seventeen-year-old American is due to walk through the door at the Etihad.
There is a case for leaving him where he is for a while longer regardless. He lives at home, his older brother Quinn, 22, is in the same dressing room, and both his parents played the game. His grandfather Larry went from playing in the 1960s to becoming one of the best-known coaches in the Philadelphia area. That is a lot of people around a young player who, by Tannenwald's account, is handling the attention well and can still come across as a teenager when you talk to him long enough.
Player context: Cavan Sullivan, 16, attacking midfielder, Philadelphia Union. Made his MLS debut aged 14. Manchester City secured his future signing in 2024; he can officially join in a little over a year. Seven goals and five assists in MLS this season. Started the United States' 4-1 friendly win over Peru on Saturday at 16 years and 363 days, the fourth youngest player to represent his country.
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