Could Cavan Sullivan be our Lamine Yamal in WC 2026?

You're right but I just discovered a thread with 23 pages today basically around the premise of Sullivan being American Lamine. No disrespect to Sullivan, who's a fine prospect, and like I said to me he has the look of a first division starter in europe but the high probability outcome - he's a Baena or Almada - a very good player, just not a dominant superstar, should be what the hope is. Lamine or Bellingham or Pedri or Haaland honestly very hard to develop in US Soccer.

 

You may be right about the last point but I do not see the Luka Modric comparison. I stand by Baena or Almada as comparisons. He is not explosive. He's technical, high IQ. He's not physically dominant like Bellingham. He's got good IQ but he's not on Pedri's level not even close. possible? yes. anything is possible. but the likely outcome is Baena/ Almada, solid, not explosive first div player in europe that could be a fixture in US Soccer for close to 2 decades, but not a superstar

 

Decent is a pretty silly take to me. Here are guys I thought were decent, after watching US U20 and U17 squads the past 23 years.....

Sal Zizzo
Justin Mapp
Eddie Gaven
Marvell Wynne
Sacha Klejstan
Benny Feilhaber
Robbie Findley
Mix Discord
Perry Kitchen
Bobby Wood
Will Trapp
Luis Gill
CCV
Kellyn Acosta
E. Hyndman
LDLT
Mendez
Gloster
Durkin
Sebastian Soto
B. Craig
D. Edelman
Q. Sullivan
C. Cowell

Those are some of the names, some I was more hopeful than others, others I totally missed who were great, others I less hopeful for, and they turned out great, or even worse, but generally speaking the above is a list of decent U20's. Cavan Sullivan, needless to say, does not remotely fit with that group, in the U17 or U20 sense. He doesn't.

The U17's and U20's that match or at least approach what's been observed w/him are Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Freddy Adu, Jozy Altidore, Wright and C. Pulisic, Adams and McKennie and Taitague, G. Reyna, and that's about it. There are some guys that had semi analogous hype and flamed out: Gyau, Renken, Taitague, Zelalem, but its worth noting that all of them sustained largely career killing injuries, while Zelalem was probably just misscouted and overhyped.

Cavan isn't a decent guy, the only guy amongst all of the above listed that really comes close to what was and is thought of Cavan right now, last year, and the years before would be Adu, and even Ada, for all the hype, was not drawing a bidding war between the biggest clubs in Spain, England, Germany and the like, he was drawing interest from second and third tier Spanish clubs and worse, and we didn't know his age, nor his size and pace issues and yada yada.

The reality is Cavan is a 1 of 1 prospect for us. If he doesn't get hurt, and he keeps his head straight, and he's a first in and last out type mentality guy, there's a real good chance he'll make our Men's Soccer Rushmore and be our best ever player, for now, he's the best ever player we've ever seen at age 13-15 without question, and for people underwhelmed by his performance with the U17's, I'd just point to what Pulisic did with his group of death in 2015, which was largely ---- all. Cavan finished with 2 goals, we lost to Morocco in the Round of 32 after idiotically giving up a 90th minute equalizer (and I believe Albert missed a penalty in regulation), Cavan made his penalty in PK's but we ended up losing later (Albert would make his in PK's, just not in regulation)...Now we just saw him last month in Ivory Coast's last pre WC tune up before a WC where they'd be one of the best teams of the group stage after the big dogs. A 16 year old Sullivan based on reports may have been the outright best player on the field in the game.....an all touches video was tweeted at the time....

Highlights of Cavan Sullivan vs The Ivory Coast 🇨🇮 First Team
Cavan held his own against a very physical team that just beat France👀

🎥 cavan.sull pic.twitter.com/JIEo9Re4yN

— USMNTContent (@USMNTContent) June 10, 2026

We don't know what he'll be, we'll see, I've learned a lot of bitter lessons' trying to figure out how to scout these prospects the past 23 years and failing miserably on it w/a ton of misses, but generally speaking, hitting on most of the guys that actually did make it through (exception would be U17 Dest, who I barely even noticed back in '17, as an example, and in '19, would notice, as the guy responsible for us losing the opener against eventual tournament winner Ukraine)....but looking at him, there's clearly been a kind of massive blowback to the hype, that I've in general viewed as a desire for the public to avoid buying in like they did with Freddy 20 years ago, and to a lesser extent, w/this golden generation which as good as it has been, has underperformed inferior teams w/less talent circa '94, '02, '10, and '14 cycles.....

I definitely get the sense that after buying in with Adu, and to a lesser extent, guys like Zelalem, and the golden generation tagged current senior team, people are twice, and thrice bitten and now innumerably more shy....but Cavan is it. The question is whether he can avoid injuries that destroyed most recently, the potential of Taitague, and Paxton Pomycall, and the mental make up issues (that in addition to other issues) which waylaid guys like Andrew Carleton. So long as Cavan can avoid injuries, and be a first in, last out worker, he will hit. I don't know to what degree, but I have no doubt whatsoever he will hit, if he can avoid those two specters that have waylaid an absolute litany of prospects over the decades (Snow, O'Brien, Eddie Johnson, Renken, Gyau, Holden, Davies, maybe Zelalem, Taitague, and Pomykal to name a few).

He's definitely far more than decent, but the next couple of years, and what's between the ears will define a great deal of what's possible for him between WC 2026 and WC 2046.

 

You are defining decent relative to other US soccer prospects and I am defining decent relative to elite world class players. I dont know 90% of the guys you mentioned. I dont need to know them. I've watched Sullivan play a lot and I have a high opinion of him! But comparing him to world class superstars is total kool aid drinking from american fans or scouts

 

.....................we don't need to be the fun police.

Everybody here knows that Cavan Sullivan is a USMNT prospect only.
Prospect being a latin word meaning "hasn't really done squat yet."

 

I think he's more physical than Modric, but I get your point and agree otherwise. I kind of half understand the poster's point, but he should already know that in a forum like this, most of us know about....

Cavan Sullivan
Mathis Albert
Diego Kochen
Leonard Prescott
Jakupovic
Flowers
Gozo
Miller
Mehmeti
Pierre
Hall
etc


The reality is, this isn't 2003-2007 and the aduification of fandom. Everyone and their mother has their eyes on the '09 and '11 prospect classes, and the pieces from '06-'08 and '10 that are exciting too. We all realizing that the more prospect bullets we have, the less devastating O'Brien, Renken, Gyau, Holden, Taitague, and Pomykal injuries are. We're not idiots, most of this antique social media boards members have been watching USYNT prospects for 15-30 years, not a few years. Cavan is the top of the pile, but it is, actually, a pile.

 

Nobody has posted in the thread for what, a year? The posts about him are largely siloed to the USYNT forum because that's where we obsessively discuss prospects.

I'm not hoping he's Yamal, or anything like that, I'm hoping he's the next elite USMNT player, and unlike Pulisic, and McKennie, he actually is Captain material, unlike McKennie (who has gotten himself suspended a few too many times as a pro for that to me), or Pulisic (whose a wall flower, who hates attention, exception for the extra $$$ it puts in his pockets via commercials and false marketing nonsense)....

If he hits, he'll be our next great CM, following in the footsteps of Ramos, the Reyna's, Donovan, McKennie, and Tillman, and his ceiling is higher than all of them, though his game is fairly different than each of them too.

 

Yes but this is true of any top end prospect. But we don’t really figure out someone’s ceiling when they’re 16.

 

Saw the clip - good stuff - did see a slight air of Pedri in the way he glides with the ball. It's good stuff for sure. He's got a big future. Superstar? NO at least not to my eyes. What does a potential superstar look like at this age, besides Lamine obviously. For me Tunkara, JJ Gabriel these are a couple. Tunkara is training with the Barsa first team. Sullivan is playing MLS. There are levels to world soccer..

 

Nobody thinks he's a Lamine Yamal, the premise of the thread when it started and I'd say, for virtually anyone reading the thread, and commenting on it was basically, "What is this dude's ceiling? What is the likelihood of him reaching it...." etc.

Was Yamal a possibility? Yes, but in the same vein that Darryn Peterson is legit Kobe II, or that AJ Dybantsa is Tracy McGrady and SGA's love child, everyone here viewed Cavan as a guy whose ceiling if literally everything hit on all levels was stardom, but how often does that really happen? In my fandom, obsessively watching U17 and U20 soccer I've only seen it come close or actually hit a couple of times.....

1.I was watching when Messi was benched for the opener of the '05 U20 WC against us in the first half and we shocked them.

2. I was watching when Kaka and Robinho ran circles around us as teenagers.

3. I was watching when our U20's inexplicably tied France's loaded Pogba lead champion '13 U20 side.....

I missed Mbappe until the WC when he arrived etc, I did watch Ronaldo at his first major tournament for Portugal......I saw Rooney the year he broke out etc....but generally speaking, I've seen a bazillion guys also turn into nothing like the '07 U20 Brazilian team we beat, and the less hearlded, but significantly more talented Suarez and Cavani lead Uruguay U20's we beat two weeks later......

I don't know what Cavan is going to be, but, yeah, I didn't know Suarez was Suarez, or that Messi was Messi in '05 (I would get it a few years later with the Getafe goal and what he did for Barcelona in '05 and '06), or that Cavani was Cavani, Pogba was obvious, but yeah, Cavan? I don't know....I just know he's hitting based on what I've seen....and he's only got two obstacles left.....

What's the scale of the hit? I don't know. I would be happy with Reyna if he had never gotten hurt, but more physical, despite the size differences, I don't need him to be Yamal, I just need him to be the best player he can be when he puts the work and love into the game and hopefully dodges injury. Is that a top 100 players? Maybe, if we're lucky? Is it a top 50 or 25 player? You can't really say that until you watch them play for a couple years at the big boy level, sometimes its obvious: Ronaldo, Rooney, Messi, Pogba, were all obvious to me, Mbappe, but I wasn't aware of him until it was right in your face....so maybe its possible, but I'd settle for top 100-200. Yamal is basically a miracle thing.....The title of the thread is an analogy grabber thread title, I don't think its serious in any sense beyond, "Just how good could he be for us if he hits?"

The answer is, we just don't know, not yet. But in terms of hitting, I think he's there, he and Albert are on the cusp, the question is how good, and can they stay injury free, and its worth noting that apparently Flowers is already getting this attention too, and its also worth noting that while Yamal was getting this attention, so were Endrick and Kendry Paez, and now the twin brothers that went to the EPL from Ecuador as well.....for now Yamal is the famous one, but we'll see.....

 

I also think like others above had said watching so many fizzle and get injuries that most of us no longer go overboard. We recognize talent and possibilities but also know we have to wait until there's actual production on good teams in good leagues. We're old and no longer naive.

 

Despite the thread title, I don't think Lamine is a fair comp simply from the standpoint that even Lamine is exceptionally rare for a prospect, less than once a decade rare, even more rare than Messi in the sense that what did Messi actually do at these ages?

Messi didn't even set foot on the field for Barcelona until he was a few weeks away from turning 18 years old in 2005. Dude got 75 minutes from about 7 or 8 matches, and then Roandlinho gave him that famous first goal because that's how Ronaldinho rolled. But the reality with Messi, when did we see Messi being Messi?

After 18 years old in the '05-'06 season for Barcelona.

Mbappe? Same, his age 17/18 season for PSG in '16-'17

What about Ronaldo? his age 18/19 seen with Manchester United.

What about Luis Diaz? Age 21....

What about Harry Kane? Age 18/19 with Millwall in the Champo.

What about Modric? Age 20 in his '05-'06 season with his local club.

Xavi was 20-21 when he hit started to hit for Barcelona, Iniesta was 21.....

Toni Kroos was age 19/20 when he broke out, Kimmich was 22.....

That's the problem I think, if you look through these guys, and at first I was just looking for stars, then I looked at some midfielders since Cavan is probably going to be an 8 or a hybrid 10 at the next level, I looked at central miss you see the same thing over and over. Yamal is an absurd analogy because he's really, 1 of 1 in a way literally nobody has been since Maradona. I probably should look up guys post Maradona and pre-Messi like Zidane, to see what they were doing, but I figured I should look at guys this century since this is the modern era of soccer w/its specifically modern demands and you see what you see over and over again.....


When do these guys actually breakout ant stop getting 1000 minutes with like 3 goal contributions, and start hitting double digits, and basically other than Rooney, literally all of them, even Messi, it's age 18, 19, 20, and 21.

Cavan Sullivan doesn't even turn 17 until September. He won't play his age 18 season until the European '27-'28 club season, or the MLS '28 season. Dude is still basically two years away from when most superstars actually begin to hint they may be superstars as full time professionals (age 18-20). That isn't to say they aren't understood to be superstars before that, Messi was known to be a holy ---- prospect when he was a middle school aged kid, I'm sure most of these guys were too, probably almost all of them....but when did you actually see it on the field? Mbappe, Modric, Xavi, Messi, Ronaldo etc?

None of these guys showed ---- in terms of counting stats with their clubs until their age 17/18 seasons at the earliest, and typically age 18-20. For Cavan Sullivan, again, that is going to be September 2027-September 2029. It's largely years away. If I'm going to be worried about Cavan, it's going to be injury based, or if he's still putting around w/crummy performances in 2028 and 2029, then I'll be worried.

For now, I expect him to get his first USMNT's caps during the '27-'28 UEFA club seasons, fall '28 at the latest.

 

Yep, I'm the essence of once bitten, twice shy, and the fact that I've seen so many flame outs with guys I really loved, Taitague probably being the most painful relatively recently, makes me extremely inclined to be worried (which is why at the U17 WC, I was alarmed at how meh for the hype, Albert was....since then, he's gotten right back into a groove for Dortmund and I'm happy again, far too often I've taken too much, for the good, or for the bad, away from U20 windows of a couple of games, so I'm not going to over weight what was a middling U20 performance for him)....but yeah, even w/my growing caution with prospects, I watch him, and literally the only concerns I have are two things we can't know too well so far.....

Is he gonna get hurt in the worst way?

What kind of mentality/work habits does he have (the info seems to be positive, but they rarely crap on teenagers when it comes to that unless it makes the news with how bad it is....for instance Reyna curfew stories from the '19 U17 WC only popped out after the '22 WC)....


And one thing that's not really controllable (Just how tall will he be?)....I've heard people who are familiar with him and his family say he's built in terms of height like his shorter mom rather than his reasonably tall dad, unlike Quinn and his other brothers who've got the tall genes, but on the positive side, he's really stocky and filled out, he is not thin and frail, so it should be immaterial.....

So yeah, despite being cautious, I'm hyped, and I was really hyped seeing him against Ivory Coast, because while that was just a scrimmage, friendly, it was the last game Ivory Coast was playing before the WC, and this was an Ivory Coast that beat France a weak earlier in a friendly, won the AFCON in '23, made a QF run in '25 before falling to Egypt 3-2, went undefeated in WCQ, with zero goals allowed, and played Germany, Ecuador, and Norway at the WC, and looked as good as just about all of them (outplayed Germany in defeat, beat Ecuador, were probably second best against Norway, but that game was tied 1-1 late).....and Cavan looked like either the best or one of the best players on the field according to scouting reports?!?!?! That's freaking insane.

 

He isn't Lamine neither he is Dibu. Wrong players, wrong body types, wrong everything. We can also live without opinions of Euro pretenders who have never seen him.

 

In hindsight I think Cavan could've scored only a single goal in this World Cup against a weak group stage opponent, like Yamal just did.

(let's just ignore the other good stuff Yamal did like the 35 completed dribbles)

 

Well, no, if you read through the thread, plenty of people said the comparison was kind of ridiculous, and then we started talking about whether he could make the 2026 roster.

That also quickly centered around people putting it at anywhere around 0-10% chance, even when there was time.

And now it's just mostly about Sullivan.

Just because one poster on the whole internet is over-exuberant does not speak to anything about US Soccer. Yes, there's always been a hype machine and yes, it's somewhat silly.

But it's not really what's holding us back.

 

Sullivan is an exceptional passer. Period. He's also got a high work rate and a very good soccer IQ. None of that guarantees superstardom, but like the non-Yamal players you listed might just disappear as well.

He's a CAM or a DeBruyne-esque free 8 as a position, so he's not going to take the world by storm at 16. Wingers always have an edge -- it's BY FAR the easiest position to play young. Center mids take longer.

Whether he becomes a true super star will likely be the result of a whole lot of development going forward. And it's unlikely.

What is likely is that he can help the USMNT.

I don't think there's really anything negative about Cavan playing in MLS; he's already been signed by Man City. This isn't an evaluation thing. It's just he's going to get good minutes there.

 

The real issue is we are really reliant on Cavan hitting as a player. No single prospect is likely to turn into an elite player because most prospects end up not quite getting there. What other countries have is volume. They aren’t just reliant on a single player making it to that level. They don’t just have a single player like Cavan so that even if most of them don’t hit some will statistically.

 

I think you are kind of missing the point here. I don't think the idea was ever to compare Cavan to Lamine. The point was to wonder if Cavan could have the type of impact for the US that Yamal has had for Spain. That puts the standard that we are considering several levels below the actual Lamine Yamal.

Similarly, all of the Messi nicknames are really silly. Was Brenden Aaronson ever on track to be anything close to Messi? Of course not. Compared to others in Medford, NJ, is he basically Messi? Yeah, sure.

The question, as I interpret it anyway, is more about when Cavan will actually break out. Is it going to be at 16 like Yamal? I guess we'll see during the second half of this season. He did show some really promising progress in the first half.

Ever since last summer, the question that I thought made a lot more sense is, "Can Cavan Sullivan be our Gil Mora?" It's basically the same question, though.

 

It will be interesting to see what this vaguely '09-'11 group ends up being ('08-'11?). Is it all riding on one player? Or are guys like Albert, Hall, Mehmeti in that same tier, and therefore, while we don't have Spain or France numbers ... we're beginning to have more numbers?

Even so, does it sustain? Or is there another lull after?

 

So we aren't going to talk about Mora?....

 

I do think there's around 4 or 5 guys, maybe 6, that while not quite at the Cavan level, other than maybe Albert, are really more impressive than any prospects really since the '97's through the '02's, and most of them are amongst the best prospects we've ever had age 14-19 right now.....that's what is exciting, at least to me. I already knew that the 01's or so through the '05's other than Reyna and Pepi weren't going to produce too much, it's telling when you have an U20 team like '23, where you don't think any of them, are locks to be USMNT relevant, and said side had the best U20 Concacaf Championship of any side ever along the way....so yeah, I tend to think probably 2 or 3 years between the '07s and '11's will end up amongst the top 5 or 6 years of prospects ever developed. It aint just Cavan, Cavan is the prize, but several other guys would be the best of good classes from the past.....so it's quite promising, but yeah, Cavan has literally everything we need, if it plays out, as a top end prospects. The finishing, the passing, the alpha dawg mentality, physicality, vision, the dribbling, all of it. If he hits it will be a tier pushing, level jumping level hit for us, much like Pulisic was when he hit, nearly single handedly dragging a decrepit, utterly bunk '17 USMNT to the World Cup practically on his own.

 

Based on highlights he reminds me of Wesley Sneijder.

 

I tend to think that for the USMNT, those '09 to '11 classes (I think '07 and '08 have B/B+ grades, while '09 and '11 are seen as A+ and '10 as A or A-) look a lot like in prospect terms, the '25 and '26 NBA classes up top. We just haven't seen 14-16 year old prospects like this since Pulisic, Adams, McKennie, Taitague, Alejandro Zendejas and Wright were playing together and the '99's, and that late 80's group that produced like 4 or 5 guys that made the '94's. It feels like this stretch, from '07-'11, is similar to '97-'03, just deeper and heavier in cream than that one and those famous U17/U20 groups from 1999-2003....but they just feel better, underline the better, and deeper. Time will tell, but it really does feel like what's beginning to happen '07-'11 or thereabouts, is what we kind of thought might happen 20 years ago etc after WC '02 but didn't. Really starting to feel like even though are set up is broken in many ways, the fact that we have places for the kids to come through all over the place, instead of the old ODP type set ups and Bradenton etc is finally pushing through both depth, and top end.

We'll see, but I think it's promising that basically from '97's through '11, the only years that really really stunk, appear to be the ones that were most heavily impacted by the covid shut downs, especially out west and in the northeast in 2020 and 2021 (birth years hit hardest we were told on scuffed were '04's, and '05's and to a lesser extent, '06's, and that proved out, I think it's clear those were the worst development years since the '94's).

 

A guy who broke out in his age 19 season in the Eredivisie, and like Ronaldinho, appeared to like partying, and food just as much as soccer. I find his quote somewhat sad, but familiar in my own life, in how he talks about how as much as he loved soccer, he loved fine dining, wine, and having fun just as much, paraphrasing (I'm similar on food, and wine, not so much parties, being a bit of an introvert), and he explained that that was one of the reasons (in some interview) his prime was relatively short compared to other stars of the era (his age 29 season was his last in a big 5 league before leaving for Turkey, and playing there till he was around 34 before flaming out entirely, and his last truly good or great club season was with Inter in '10-'11 when the dude was only about 26)......

Cavan seems more interested in soccer than Sneijder, if he can play with similar talent, but with far more dedication and passion, we'll be quite lucky.