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While the Philadelphia Union’s failure to earn a result in face of New England’s fight-back Saturday night must remain the most important current news story for Philadelphia Union fans, there was a secondary one of some importance that night. Cavan Sullivan started his third consecutive MLS Game, something he had never done before.

His first start of the season had been in Chester against Caribbean Championship third-place qualifier Defence Force FC of Trinidad and Tobago, an opponent of neither MLS nor Liga MX caliber. He then started both games against Club America in the Concacaf Champions Cup on the 10^th and 18^th of March. And he punctuated that sequence by starting against MLS side Chicago on March 21^st.

Most recently he started against Columbus in Columbus on April 25^th, against Nashville in Chester on May 2^nd, and against New England in Foxboro on May 9^th. His minutes in those matches were 66, 69, and 73 respectively. Against three straight MLS opponent he produced minutes in quantities appropriate to any starting attacking midfielder in the league. He behaved like, and was handled like, a fully-fledged league participant suggesting that in terms of his conditioning and stamina he now clearly belongs to Major League Soccer.

Raw data

Here is the raw performance data we have accumulated from our own unofficial observations of Sullivan’s play this year. We have made no attempts to verify any of these data with other sources, official or otherwise.

Cavan Sullivan’s conditioning development over time

First, here is the raw sequence of all his game minutes (Read the chart horizontally)

• Each vertical column is a game. They are listed first-to-last left-to-right.
• The first horizontal row gives the Union’s opponent.
• The second row gives the number of days between games, aka, the recovery time, a key datum when conditioning youngsters safely.
• The third gives Sullivan’s game minutes on the pitch for that game.
• The asterisks indicate that travel must be added into the understanding of recovery time challenges. The Port-of-Spain and Mexico City trips were far and away the most onerous:
  • 2,200 miles & 4 ½ to 5 ½ hours to Trinidad,
  • 2,000 miles and 3 ½ to 4 ½ hours to Tenochtitlan.

Second, we divide the above chart’s 16 games into two segments, one of nine and one of seven.

1. The first group is the opening month of the season during which CCC play combined with MLS play. There was only one “normal” recovery break between matches (6 days), and there was a second that was quite close (5 days). All other recovery breaks were only three or four days long.
2. The seven games followed and are characterized by fewer midweek matches and a greater frequency of “normal” recovery time, a more conventional developmental milieu within which Sullivan’s conditioning could occur.

Sullivan’s opening-of-season: Nine games in 32 days

1. Judging from Carnell’s press conference comments, during the earliest parts of the season Sullivan’s expected opponent matchups influenced the decisions whether his played and if so how much.
2. We are guessing that another priority may perhaps have been to start him against the best team Philadelphia was scheduled to play until August’s Leagues Cup, for evaluation and teaching. These “big games” were against perennial LIga MX powerhouse Club America.
3. By the end of this time segment Sullivan was judged to be capable of back-to-back hour-long segments of play at the MLS or Club America levels. That represents clear progress in the growth of his basic conditioning.

After the CCCup was over, MLS matches only.

1. The most striking characteristic of this data is at the end of it, the sequence of three consecutive MLS starts.
   1. Judging by Carnell’s presser comments both before and after  the New England game, Sullivan both recognized and was able to perform his defensive functions either acceptably or better than acceptably.
   2. By the eyeball test he was one of the Union’s better chance creators and offensive forces three straight times.

Further development

Two more major conditioning steps remain ahead for the 16-year-old.

His must produce his first ever MLS 90-minute game. Barring setbacks, this could reasonably be expected to happen later in 2026, probably after the Union’s 59-day world cup break since only three matches remain before it.

After that he must produce his first ever back-to-back, weekend-and-midweek, 90-minute MLS games. This step forward is unlikely to happen as soon as the previous one, representing as it does the mark of a fully conditioned fully adult elite soccer player.

Furthermore, it is a feat more difficult to achieve for an attacker than for a defender especially in Philadelphia’s version of “energy drink” soccer. Adult defenders are routinely expected to play back-to-back weekend-and-midweek 90s. Fewer attacking mids and strikers manage a second consecutive full 90. On the Union recently only Sullivan’s older brother Quinn has managed the feat with any degree of repetition, and that was only when he was fresh at the beginning of last season.

Cavan Sullivan now belongs firmly in MLS.  Whether he will come to dominate play there remains a question for the future. Manchester City will be watching.