There’s a video from a United States U-15 camp three years ago that will make your head spin. It’s a routine training session for the boys on the pitch except one, a head shorter and a year or two younger than the others, who’s practicing with the national team for the first time. A pass floats into the box and he checks his run, tries to get under it, but the ball is too high for his 13-year-old head to reach.
As the cross sails over him, he flings himself forward like Superman and flicks a heel up behind his back, catching the ball with a scorpion kick that bounces straight into the path of a teammate for a cartoon assist. This is Cavan Sullivan: a player whose next move is difficult to predict, probably even for him. Which makes it even more remarkable that the predictions about him keep coming true.
By now, you may have heard about him. Whispered about by scouts since childhood, signed before he had played a single minute as a pro to join Manchester City the day he turns 18, Sullivan became the youngest debutant in Major League Soccer history when he was 14. But raw potential doesn’t mean much at that age: the child star whose record he broke was none other than Freddy Adu, the great cautionary tale of American soccer.
For two tantalizing years after he turned pro, Sullivan remained more a prophecy than a player, growing up on the Philadelphia Union’s bench. This summer, though, he got his shot, and in a recent run of starts he’s been rapidly, visibly maturing into the star who was promised. We finally have actual data on Sullivan and it’s very, very exciting.
Just getting on the pitch is already a promising sign. Of the 10 teenagers who have earned the most playing time in MLS since 2015, eight have made the leap – with varying degrees of success – to Europe’s top five leagues. Sullivan isn’t there yet but he has by far the most minutes of any 16-year-old in that time and runs a close second to Adri Mehmeti, the 17-year-old currently bossing the New York Red Bulls’ midfield, at the next age up.
Another leading indicator is how much his teammates trust him. Sullivan takes 10.3% of his team’s touches, the most of any teenage MLS winger in at least a decade. Second place is Alphonso Davies, now of Bayern Munich, the best homegrown player the league has ever produced.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
