For now at least, I would assume that he has plenty of clips that his coaches (and maybe family) are giving him that he pays a lot more attention to than random videos posted to social media.
I have no insight into how he handles the hype but he reposts a ton of content that is posted about him (including many posts from YSC) on his Instagram stories. He definitely invites the hype rather than shying away from it. From an outsider looking in doesn't seem to have affected him negatively thus far. He definitely has a strong support system. He is surrounded by family members who collectively have a ton of professional experience. His dad was a former A-league player which is now USL. His mom played D1 soccer. His dad's cousin is Chris Albright who played for the USMNT and is now the GM at FC Cincinnati. I'd imagine that having a professional older brother who has gone through a lot of this himself has provided him with a pretty good blueprint on how to handle the hype and maintain focus on improvement.
Everything I hear suggests he's made for this, and has an elite mentality, but he's 14 years old. It's impossible to not add that caveat. It's a huge variable in the equation, and why I would be very excited, yet not ready to pencil him in for a spot on the USMNT down the road.
I will bring Cavan back down to earth with my prospect review Cavan Sullivan: 1/10 (D-) Strength: bleached hair (see Reyna, Scally, Jedi) Weakness: eczema
I agree, these were filmed with an iphone by someone standing on the sideline. It's hardly a complete representation of his level of play and I seriously doubt they were the "highlights" of his MLS Next Fest, just some clips. I wouldn't be overly impressed if this was the first time seeing him either but who cares, there's plenty of footage online. I know the YSCentral twitter account does have good intentions but they are after clicks/likes too. I would hardly call that a highlight video of the most skilled 14yo in the country. I'm sure they are just trying to post whatever Cavan content they can get. No biggie really. Anyway, I do wonder how he'll handle all the hype. The more hype you get, the more negative attention you will also get. You have to block that out. There will always be haters. I've been expecting this type of hype after I first saw him play four years ago. I literally couldn't not believe what i was watching. But it's got to be crazy for him, living and trying to progress as a player when everyone is saying you're the next great thing. That's got to mess with your mind quite a bit.
Just going by the highlight clips that have been posted here (in other words, take with a huge grain of salt), I think he looks like a good player at the U-17 level, but not a dominant one. I don't think that means much in terms of his long-term ceiling; leaps can happen very quickly at this age with a little growth spurt, adjustment to a higher level, etc. But I do think we should temper short-term expectations. For example, I don't think he's going to be playing in real games for the Philly senior team at any point in 2024, a possibility I've seen some of the most optimistic hypers throw out there. Even Next Pro is likely a step too far for 2024 unless he has a real growth spurt this winter/spring and can better handle the physicality of playing against grown men.
His grandfather was a longtime coach for Villanova. Jim Curtain played for him. That family is the epitome of Philly soccer.
how soon? https://www.ussoccercollective.com/rankings/top-20-2009 #1 | AM, Cavan Sullivan, Philadelphia Union Other Citizenship: Germany Last International Cap: United States U15 Prospect Tier: High 1 Much has been said about Sullivan over the last year or so and the hype train continues to pick up pace. He’s young, who knows what will happen, but for now, just enjoy the ride and hope for health. He can play as an 8, 10 or wing and it will be interesting to see where he ends up long term. He is the only U.S. 2009 born player that plays with the 2008 group for the U.S. Youth National Team. He is one of three 2009 players that consistently starts for a U17 team at the club level. Skill, intelligence, athleticism, mentality — he’s got them all. He also has a German passport which means he can move to Europe at 16, a golden ticket for a player like him. The chances of him signing with Philly are slim to none unless a seismic change occurs in the very near future. From what I hear, a decision on his future will be announced soon and he will likely be committing his future to one of the biggest clubs in the world. We will see, nothing is done until it is officially announced.
A decision may be announced soon, but he will not be able to play abroad until he is 16, correct? So almost another 2 years.
Yes. He only just turned 14. If his Euro passport is in order, then we have two years before a move to Europe is even possible. People on websites like that enjoy pretending they know something that the rest of us don't. Usually, they don't. Then they say "nothing is certain" or "nothing is done" to give themselves an out when it doesn't happen. I guess a club could do the kind of thing that Man City did with Alex Alcala. That was a pre-arrangement with La Galaxy to have first refusal to Alcalá's buyout clause once he turned 18. [He already turned 18 and I don't see evidence that they did that.]
AFAIK, nothing is going to be announced soon. Could a decision be made soon? Yeah, I've heard some speculation a decision is imminent (or pretty much decided already), but that also might take some time because he's 14, and 14 year olds aren't pro players. Nothing has to be decided now. He may end up taking his time to decide. There are probably things that I don't know though about this.
I don't think the hype machine is as big of a concern as it was 20 years ago when Adu broke out. I would surmise this is for a couple of reasons, purely speculating, but basically: 1.) Once bitten twice shy. After the Adu experience, the greatest to come up in the years following were generally less hyped. Pulisic wasn't particularly hyped, indeed Wright was initially getting more love circa 2013-2014 than Pulisic, and Pulisic only really entered the wider public eye, Adu style, once he was playing in Europe. It's generally been the same since. The general public had no clue who McKennie was in 2017 and 2018, by 2019-2021 they did. I tend to think the public in general just doesn't overhype middle school age players anymore, they only pay attention when they're playing in Europe. 2.) 20 years ago we had largely nobody in Europe, just a handful of players that weren't keepers. 15 years ago several guys went over, and now, over the past 5 years, we've come to be a team that has usually a half dozen to a dozen or more in CL in the group stage every season, and have had guys on the top sides in Italy, Germany, England, and France. We have legit young studs over there, so the great new soccer hope is kind of already here. Pepi is scoring the game winning goal to knock out Europa King Sevilla from all of Europe, Pulisic at AC Milan is knocking NewCastle not only out of CL, but Europa too, Weah and McKennie are helping lead Juve back to the top, while this isn't a Brazil or France situation where we have literally dozens upon dozens of players in Europe, we've got players at the top of multiple leagues playing key roles in big games already, with the biggest of teams. We have the great hope already, a bunch of them. 3.) I just don't think the greater public knows who the hell Cavan is. I would bet that 90-95% of the public watchers of soccer in this country have no clue who he is to begin with, maybe even 98%. You can't overhype a guy when he's not actually getting any public attention to speak of. Adu made the news, made commercials with Pele, played in MLS as a middle school age kid etc, he was everywhere. Cavan, like Pulisic and so many after Pulisic, is flat out an unknown to 99% of the sporting public and probably 99.9% of the general public, in addition, even amongst soccer watchers (Big 5 league viewers, CL viewers, MLS whatever) he's a name probably about 1 in 20 to 1 in 50 even know, tops. You can't overhype that. He's fine. Could you overhype it two years from now? 18 months from now? Maybe. Not now though. So I tend to think he's gonna be allowed to keep a small head until at least '25 when he turns 16, maybe till '26 or '27 if he continues on this trajectory. Overhyping is not a concern when the only people hyping are on big soccer, which nobody pays attention too, and twitter, which is a cess pool that's largely ignored unless it's a big name posting. I don't think there's really anything to worry about beyond him staying healthy and developing and refining a first in, and last out approach to the game, along with the requisite passion so he doesn't burn out.
Let's not forget that Freddy was filming national commercials at 14. Cavan is not facing anything close to the level of distractions that Freddy was.
Also, so much of managing this comes down to the parents; etc. Having family in the game and even having teammates and club leadership that can give him the perspective of how hard it is to be something special in a world context will help.
Yeah, I'm not a lawyer or an agent, but I don't know what he can do right now that is legally binding at all with a Euro club. Even if he announces an informal agreement with Man City, say, I don't see why he or the club couldn't walk away from that when he turns 16.
I think things would be different for Adu these days too. MLS was still fairly new back then and the league felt like they had to sign him at that young age. And there was nowhere for him to go but the first team. In today’s set up they’d still probably sign him, but he’d be able to work his way up the youth teams as he was ready, without the same level as pressure and hype. Those early years with DC United he definitely wasn’t ready, but they also had no choice but to play him and he was under incredible pressure to show that the hype was deserved.
It would be different because back then we were naive and believed all the bs including Freddy's age. He and the bunch of other "prodigies" taught us a lesson.
As someone who was around for the Freddy Adu ........................ Of course, everything is handled differently these days. Freddy was just a product of the times. Remember that there was no development academy for him to play in. There was no reserve league. There were no 2nd/3rd divisions that could be trusted with his development on loan. There was no such thing as a homegrown academy signing in 2004. So when a young prospect entered the league, the only way for him to actually play at a trusted level was with the MLS first team. Freddy was young, but what we did with him was the same we did with other young prospects too. And the hype machine was driven by the soccer professionals. Not by the fans. MLS was struggling. MLS needed a boost. The kind of boost that Fredddy and excitement about the "next big thing" can provide. Average, non-soccer nuts, were convinced to buy tickets to see DCU because Freddy Adu was going to be there. No joke. The "next Pele." It was a circus of our own making. [Remember that the league was so desperate for it to work, that they rigged the system in Freddy's favor. Dallas actually had the first pick in the draft, and the league forced them to trade it to DCU. What did Dallas get for it? Mystery allocation money. Dallas was a mess of a franchise at that time. Actually decent on the field, but behind the scenes a total disaster. They were playing in a high school football stadium with artificial turf.] None of his would happen in 2023. None of it at all. And we're seeing that with Cavan Sullivan. The difference is that social media didn't exist in 2004. There wasn't a community of people posting clips and talking about prospects non-stop and in real time. There were just a precious few websites we could go to, and there was not this industry of discussing youth players. And where were the prospects anyway? The NCAAs. Bradenton. There was no development academy to watch. You were going to the Dallas Cup to see players on local youth teams. MLS academies existed, but they were just community outreach programs playing in local leagues. So there were no people going online to discuss a youth player like Cavan Sullivan like there is now on social media. Where did that kind of thing exist? Big Soccer. And it was sorta the blind leading the blind. I would see a kid at the Dallas Cup and say "hey, doesn't anybody know anything about this kid Omar Gonzalez? I saw him playing for the Texans." And everyone else would say "Who? No. Tell us what you saw." Now that we have this industry of people evaluating youth players, they all seem to want the scoop. They want to be the Adam Schefter of US youth soccer. They all want the views and hits for their feed or their site. Just like in Europe, where there are tons of soccer gossip rags....................these people are starting to just make stuff up. They're wrong most of the time, but people follow them anyway. All you gotta do is say "Player X is of interest to big European clubs!!!" and the followers follow. Even better if you bash the USYNTs, USMNT, USSF, or MLS in some way. Cuz that's what really seems to get the juices flowing with these people.
Freddy had the burden of being called America's Pele. He was 14!!!! The media, and MLS itself put a huge burden on him. He was supposed to carry the league...... One thing Earnie Stewart did with Philly's Academy when he was at the Union, was he NEVER mentioned academy players by name to the media. He did this intentionally. He wouldn't even mention standout academy players to fans during town halls and events. He often spoke about not wanting to repeat the mistakes made with Freddy Adu. He was a member of DC United during that time afterall...... Just let the kid be a kid.
It makes me respect ussoccer97531 and Marcus Chairez’s coverage. They aren’t doing this for attention or clicks, they put actual work into following these players and writing about it even if/when people disagree with their opinions. They’ll post clips and videos that actually detail their thoughts and analysis instead of posting clips for attention. They have earned the right for me that when they talk about a rumor that it’s legit and there’s a credible person behind it. Matt Hartman also has that credibility but doesn’t write about the players but has the working knowledge that he easily could if he chose to
Yup. And I should also add that its Ok to have a "hype machine." It exists in every soccer player country out there. It exists in the other major sports in this country. There's an audience for it. Lebron James, Bryce Harper, etc. were on the cover of Sports Illustrated as high schoolers. Same deal. As long as folks are approaching it with professionalism, then it's all great. What you see on social media is a lot of people just attacking the system, attacking the youth coaches, even attacking the players. The Kleibans were doing this thing thru their 3four3 twitter account. Just trashing Paxton Pomykal and Weston McKennie. Everyone in the establishment. And you're sitting here thinking? Aren't you guys in the business? How does this look to other people? There's a lot of garbage and there's a lot of lies out there in the youth soccer world. We don't need to look any further within the soccer community than the "Charlie Kennan" fiasco a couple of years ago. Its extremely difficult for those of us not "in the game" to know which of these twitter feeds and which of the social media accounts to take seriously. Anyone can start a fake rumor and run away.
O poor Freddy. Under different circumstances he wouldn't end up a slow, soft, small player. Let's be real the family made millions based on fake birth certificates. That's all you need to know about Freddy.
Big moves for mental health 🌟⁰⁰Last week, the U-17 squad participated in A Happier U, which is part of @philaunion_fdn’s HeadFirst initiative!#BabySnakes | #DOOP pic.twitter.com/lM0DGY1LiS— Philadelphia Union Academy (@phlunionacademy) December 19, 2023
nasty goal from cavan at 12:48 . u17 match between philly and columbus. pretty good video. cavan is interviewed at the end