At the time of Adu’s debut, he was 14 years 306 days old; Sullivan is 14 years 293 days old.
“Big congrats to Cavan Sullivan for his record breaking debut today,” Adu wrote in a post on X. “That’s a hard record to break and the kid did it. Well done and good luck my man.”
Sullivan isn’t just the youngest player in MLS history; he’s also the youngest player to debut in any major North American professional league.
A precocious talent who has been receiving significant hype since he was a preteen, Sullivan signed what was reported to be the richest deal for a homegrown academy player in MLS history in May — a deal that included an agreement for him to transfer to Manchester City when he turns 18.
Ahead of his MLS debut, Sullivan scored goals in back-to-back games in MLS’s second-tier league, MLS Next Pro, with Philadelphia Union II, prompting Union Coach Jim Curtin to call him into the first-team squad.
“He’s earned it,” Curtin said in his pre-match news conference Tuesday.
MLS has changed significantly since Adu made his much-hyped debut 20 years ago. Much of the league’s focus has shifted toward the development of young players, with the goal of building through academies and sending talent to the world’s top leagues. The Union is a particularly clear example of the trend.
When Adu came into the league, little of the developmental infrastructure that exists now was present. He never lived up to the hype that surrounded him at the beginning of his career, but hindsight indicates he was ill-prepared and ill-supported to be put on such a stage so young.
Adu was billed as America’s Pelé, draped in endorsement deals and the star of the show everywhere D.C. United went. When he left United for Real Salt Lake in 2006, he became a journeyman; Adu played for 15 clubs in nine countries between 2006 and the quiet end of his professional career in 2021. He bounced in and out of MLS over the years, trying to recapture the potential that made him a superstar as a teenager.
The hope, within MLS and from watchful eyes across the soccer landscape, is that Sullivan is better positioned to capitalize on his enormous talent. The Union has a strong developmental structure within its academy, and in MLS as a whole teenagers are becoming more commonplace.
Sullivan was one of three teenagers on Philadelphia’s bench for Wednesday’s game, and 16-year-old Peyton Miller made his debut for the Revolution minutes before Sullivan entered the match. But even amid a growing trend of youth development in MLS, Sullivan stands as an outlier, one with seemingly limitless potential.
“The reality is he’s not a normal kid,” Curtin said Wednesday. “We’ve known that from the start. … Because he’s different, he has a different trajectory than other kids.”
It was only five-plus minutes at the end of a blowout win, hardly enough to draw significant conclusions about Sullivan’s readiness for MLS. But Sullivan wasn’t awed by the moment; he broke into a grin on the sideline as fans chanted “We want Cavan!” before he entered, the rare moment he looked very much the teenager he is.
And in the new structure of MLS, if Sullivan isn’t ready to be a full-time contributor — and he almost certainly isn’t, at least not yet — he can rejoin Union II and play at the reserve level, rather than having no choice but to try to make it work in the top flight, as was the case when Adu emerged.
After Sullivan’s debut, Curtin made clear that the Union understands the delicacy of developing Sullivan’s talent in order for him to reach his peak.
“This is just the first chapter in Cavan’s career,” Curtin said. “For those that don’t know, we do have a plan for him. It’s not just minute by minute or day by day. … The time was right.”
