From the outside, a moment like the one Cavan Sullivan produced Saturday seemed to be pulled directly from dreamland. Turns out, it pretty much was. I was excited,” the 17-year-old said of learning he’d start for the US men’s national team against Mexico, in what would become a 3-0 win.
Before I go to sleep, I visualize and try to manifest good things for the night. Some things come to fruition, some don’t.” Sullivan visualized scoring, and celebrating with a knee slide towards the corner. Hours later, he was doing exactly that, picking off a poor pass from goalkeeper Raúl Rangel and chipping him from 35 yards out to become the USMNT’s youngest-ever goal scorer, sliding toward the corner flag after a full sprint with his teammates in hot pursuit.
The more incredible thing about Sullivan’s moment, aside from its historic nature and its semi-dreamy origins, is how normal it is for this window for the US. All but one of the 13 potential debutants called in by Mauricio Pochettino have seen time on the field, most of them impressing. Julian Hall, 18, has scored in all three of his appearances.
Mathis Albert broke Christian Pulisic’s decade-old benchmark to become the program’s youngest goalscorer and held the record for a whole four days before Sullivan’s chip. Given the opponents so far, it’s fair to say these players aren’t inching into the shallow end of the pool. They’ve been thrown in at the deep end, and they are swimming.
Peru and Chile missed this summer’s World Cup, but they are far from pushovers. While the US struggled to keep them off the scoreboard, the Americans made up for defensive miscues with a commitment to attacking, scoring four goals in each friendly. The back half of this long-winded window was primed to be even more enlightening, with Saturday’s win over Mexico and Tuesday’s date with Canada still to come.
Newly appointed captain Tyler Adams has said that these games will help determine the region’s top dog. Their final opponent of the quartet will hardly give them an inch, with Canada raring to take another step in Jesse Marsch’s second cycle at the helm. On Saturday, the US showed they can weather a storm.
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