Photo Marjorie Elzey July 17, 2024

May 9, 2025 will be the first anniversary of Cavan Sullivan’s signing as an MLS Homegrown professional with the Philadelphia Union.  Below we consider his contract, his overall progress, his specific achievements, and his opportunities for more growth in the future.

Contract

We present two types of information available about Sullivan’s signing, that which has been officially announced, and that which is unofficial but  reported by reliable sources.

• His officially announced birthdate establishes that he will turn 18  on September 28, 2027, and 19 on that date in 2028.
• His contract with Philadelphia is  guaranteed through the 2028 season with no further club option available.
• His annualized base salary on September 13, 2024 was $200,000, and his average annualized total guaranteed compensation on that date was $364,000. Spring 2025 figures are not yet available at this writing.
• As of the February 24, 2025 official MLS Roster Profiles, he is neither a designated player, a U22 initiative player, nor a TAM player. Given the rules in place when he signed, he was probably  signed with General Allocation Money (GAM) under the Homegrown player subsidy rule.
• The Union’s official press release describes Sullivan’s signing as “a Major League Soccer record deal.” It further states that he is “the youngest player in club history to be added to the first team roster, and the fifth youngest player to sign a first-team contract in MLS history.”

The statement that his contract was a record deal has never been explained in further detail.

We judge the following the most trustworthy of the many unofficial allegations about the youngster’s signing. The information was first published March 27, 2024 and was updated later that year on July 17. Click here. The link unfortunately leads behind a paywall, so we excerpt two key quotes below. The Athletic is part of The New York Times in some fashion. MLS roster moves guru Tom Bogert wrote the piece.

We quote the article’s journalistic lede in full, “The Philadelphia Union has reached an agreement on transfer terms with Manchester City to send 14-year-old academy player  Cavan Sullivan  to Manchester when he turns 18, say sources briefed on the deal, who added that the agreement is heavy on add-ons and includes a sell-on percentage.”

A second key point reports that, “The Union agreed with City that it would send Sullivan to a City Football Group side elsewhere in Europe if his development surpasses MLS before his 18th birthday, sources say.” We are guessing  that the discrepancy between Bogert’s claim of 18th birthday, and a guaranteed Philadelphia contract the next year at the end of which he will turn 19 provides flexibility to accommodate a future situation. For example, touch wood, there might be a future injury or illness recovery process.

We infer that Philadelphia and the Sullivan family persuaded Manchester City to alter its original plan to bring Sullivan to a City Group-controlled Belgian second division side when he was 16 and eligible to work in the European Union. (Thanks to his mother’s family, he is eligible for a German passport and therefore able to work inside the EU at that age.) For now, de facto, the Philadelphia Union has replaced the Belgian team.

Perhaps someday Ernst Tanner will tell the soccer world how he made it happen. The details that determine whether Sullivan “surpasses MLS” would be fascinating, since they would reveal concretely exactly how Philadelphia and City Group evaluate soccer players. But we suspect there are non-disclosure agreements since that information contains proprietary information.

If Sullivan ever becomes an important player for Manchester City, Philadelphia will further increase its credibility as a player development side.

Progress

In the year since he has turned professional, Sullivan has played for three teams.

• As a professional for the Philadelphia Union itself, he has only recently escaped what could be called cameo substituting via his most recent appearance at home against DC United that lasted 28 minutes. (Saturday, April 26th, 2025). He has showed glimpses of MLS-level potential in short bursts, but has not yet proven himself a full-fledged primary reserve let alone a starter, although he seems on the cusp of so doing.
• He does start consistently for Philadelphia Union II and now is always an impactful creative player.
• And in 2024 he started for the U. S. Youth National Team U17s. He both was, and was treated as, their best player.

He has not yet made an appearance for a youth national team in 2025. We do not yet know whether he will step up to an even older side and go to the FIFA U20s World Cup in Chile this September while an almost-16-year-old. He might, since he is already an impact player against players U20 and older in MLS NEXT Pro.

This year he has shifted positions. Until 2025 he had been primarily an attacking center midfielder, a traditional “number 10” in soccer speak. But in 2025 new Union head coach Bradley Carnell has played without one.

Sullivan has been a left mid or a right mid for both Union II and the Union itself. Playing more minutes in the wide channels may subject him to less of a physical beating from defenders a decade or more older who fear being humiliated by a 15 ½ -year-old. Placing his ball handling and creative vision out wide can channel his team’s attack there when he so chooses. It is no longer always up the middle. And when he is on an MLS field the method of advancing the ball includes a greater percentage of advancement on the dribble. Sullivan advances on the dribble more than anyone else at the professional levels of the organization using Carnell’s new principles.

The youngster’s achievements

Most recently against D. C. United Saturday April 26^th, he played the last 28 minutes, his longest ever single  length of MLS minutes. He belonged physically. His pace of play fit into the match as it was finishing. He advanced the ball on the dribble. He found correct passes and completed them successfully. He applied his defensive cues immediately and speedily thus creating effective defensive pressure. He survived receiving physical punishment and dealt out the same at least once. He belonged on that pitch that evening.

Two qualifications must be added. At its best in late April 2025, D. C. United is one of the lesser sides in the MLS eastern conference  lying 13^th of 15 in the table after 10 games. And on the evening D. C. was missing its two best offensive weapons, starting strikers Christian Benteke and Joao Peglow. Twenty-eight minutes against DC United is not 28 minutes against the Columbus Crew, FC Cincinnati, or Inter Miami CF.

Sullivan passed his DC United eyeball test. We have no idea what the Union’s proprietary performance data say. We expect he may be tested similarly against Montreal in Canada next weekend, although the Montreal decision will depend in part how the Union intend to approach its Open Cup match against USL’s Indy Eleven four days later.

Less recently in the first team’s second Orlando game, during Sullivan’s  10-minute end-of-game cameo substitution, he fully understood the offensive nuances of Carnell’s tactical shape from the moment he stepped onto the pitch. He played within those nuances, and immediately increased his side’s offensive threat against the Floridians. The substitute integrated into the scheme immediately with no hiccup in offensive efficiency. The teenager played only briefly but had immediately understood how to integrate himself into the adults and had done it.

Sullivan has been a consistent for Union II, a constant offensive threat. Opposing teams must account for him. In 2024 he provided Union II with increasingly frequent flashes of brilliance. In 2025 he is no longer a flashing lighthouse but a constantly shining theater spotlight.

Most recently against NYC FC II on Long Island on April 23 he embarrassed Andres Perea, an MLS out-of-form primary reserve playing down a level to get game minutes. Perea had to be subbed off at halftime. It had been primarily a 1 v 1 matchup in the outside channel and Sullivan had shredded him. Sullivan had been quicker, faster, smarter, and dominant. The dominance continued for the first 15 minutes of the second half against a prominent, versatile MLS NEXT Pro midfielder until Sullivan left near the 60 minute mark.

The performance against Perea was the first direct inescapable clue that he was ready to try more challenging first-team minutes, and DC three days later was an ideal opportunity for success.

When defending, Sullivan recognizes his pressing cues instinctively and immediately. He sprints to address them. He impedes his opponents’ forward progress, anticipates their probable future moves, and tries to intercept both their paths and their passes. Repeatedly and consistently his mark is made uncomfortable on the ball. But Sullivan does not yet simply clean him of it. He is not yet a ball-winner in the manner of a David Vazquez. There is no lack of courage. We suspect he recognizes that his team will be better off if he continues available to create attacking play.

Of course with a 15 ½-year-old young adolescent, “Engine building” is an on-going, fundamental project. He has started every second team game. But his minutes pattern has changed. Initially he had been playing 80 or 90 minutes. More recently he has been playing only 60. We suspect that there are physiological recovery markers in adults that he may not yet meet. We also suspect that reducing his game minutes may have improved his performances in practices with the first team. And that is the venue in which his progress is being evaluated every day. The final goal for an adult professional is to play full 90s consecutively, match after match after match as ironman number 10 Daniel Gazdag did a season or two ago. Sullivan is not there yet.

Finally, Sullivan’s mentality seems excellent. He remains fearless, brave, confident, and instinctively aware of all his responsibilities and opportunities. He recognizes the offensive ones instantly, as his assist to Sal Olivas against NYC FC II Wednesday night April 23 illustrated perfectly. That it did was not a surprise.

The youngster’s “continuing opportunities”

While Sullivan arrives correctly and rapidly on defense, he is not – yet — a ball winner. Drawing on our observations of soccer players over the decades, we conceive explanations for this particular “growth opportunity in the future”.

Some people’s temperaments orient toward containing while defending rather than attacking. All soccer players must employ both modes as circumstances dictate, but some are much better when containing and delaying than they are when “attacking to clean” in the soccer sense of cleaning.

We are beginning to accumulate evidence that containing and delaying may not be Cavan Sullivan’s natural temperament. He was fortunate against Atlanta 2  not to receive a yellow card in the third decade of the first half when he utterly clobbered the larger, older Atlanta man who was trying to defend him. He rightly received his foul. He’d gotten frustrated and let his unfortunate, bigger, older opponent have it with both barrels.

Previous descriptions of his play in earlier academy years from perceptive and articulate PSP readers described him as a “tank,” a word we interpreted as meaning (in today’s terminology) an Abrams M1E3 main battle tank not a leakproof container for storing liquids. We remember a 2024 GA Cup semifinal for which he was ineligible due to yellow card accumulation.

We interpret Sullivan’s current lack of ball-winning as a conscious adjustment to the reality that he no longer is a main battlefield tank but the youngest, smallest player on the pitch. To illustrate from observed Union II practices, he cannot simply run over 22.2-year-old, 6’4”, 193 lb Stas Korzeniowski or 17.5-year-old, 6’5”, 176 lb Neil Pierre. Whether he is motivated by hard-wired survival instincts or a conscious decision to preserve himself to provide offensive creativity for his teammates is moot. Equally moot is whether he came to these conclusions himself or under guidance from coaches. He now lives to attack another time. Constant availability to create on the pitch is more important than a specific ball-winning opportunity.

A different type of continuing opportunity for Sullivan is physical growth. We are confident his Individual Development Plan (IDP) includes bodybuilding, both consuming the right nutrients and resistance training with weights. He remains young enough that he may have a growth spurt remaining. On the other hand, he may inherit his physical stature from his mother, a former captain of the University of Pennsylvania’s Women’s Soccer Team but the shortest person in published family pictures used in advertising video. To quote the color analyst from the recent DC game, “[Sullivan] does not look 15.”

That he must do everything possible to physically resemble former Swiss international Xherdan Shaqiri even though he may already surpass him as a player is obvious. And he’s working at it.

The 16^th letter of the English language’s alphabet

Some may have heard the cliché about building Rome in a day. Manchester City, the Philadelphia Union, Philly soccer fans, and Cavan Sullivan himself must continue to focus on the letter “P.” It stands for patience.

On the other hand, Perea up on Long Island and the last half-hour of the the first team’s recent DC game both suggest that the youngster is close to stepping into a primary reserve role for the first team itself. The Union gauntlet called May’s game schedule heavily encourages the first team to discover and deploy more primary reserve midfielders. Cavan Sullivan seems ready to succeed as one of them.

Sullivan right now reminds us of Jack McGlynn at 17 and 18.

Those early versions of McGlynn could impact matches against low rank MLS teams, but had less effect on the good ones because his athleticism was not elite. Sullivan’s and McGlynn’s mentalities are comparable as creative soccer IQs, as examples of determination, and as soccer IQs. But Sullivan’s athleticism as a 15 1/2 -year-old  has already surpassed McGlynn’s as it was when the New Yorker was three years older.

Last year on May 9, Cavan Sullivan had been a 14 1/2 year old amateur who had just helped win the U17 Generation Adidas Cup. A year later at 15 ½ he is not yet ready to start and go 90 minutes for a third-place MLS eastern conference first team. But he does seem ready to join that first-team’s primary reserves.

His progress in one calendar year is a credit to the organization’s player development methods, both athletic and academic. And his progress is a credit to the support he receives from his entire family, his three brothers as well as his parents. It is also a major credit to Sullivan himself, to his self-discipline, to his Socrates-like self-knowledge, and to his Philadelphia-style, goal-oriented hard work.

Cavan Sullivan is not alone overseas, learning a new culture by means of a foreign language he is having to learn simultaneously. He can still focus totally on school and soccer. Staying home is working.