Cavan Sullivan, at 14 years and 293 days old, stepped onto a Major League Soccer field Wednesday night and, in the 85th minute of the Philadelphia Union’s match against New England, made all sorts of history.
He became the youngest player to ever appear in an MLS game, breaking a record famously held by Freddy Adu (14 years, 306 days) for more than two decades.
Sullivan is also the youngest kid to ever appear in any major U.S. team sports league.
And he is younger than everyone who has ever played in the Big Five European soccer leagues — England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1.
He is a precocious talent, an audacious attacking midfielder, an internationally-coveted prospect who has already agreed to join Manchester City when he legally can, at age 18. He attracted hype even as a pre-teen.
The hype, naturally, has raised uncomfortable questions — about our cultural obsession with prodigies; about the utility of pushing a kid to the pros at age 14; and so on — especially in the context of the man whose record Sullivan broke. Adu, of course, fell short of the monstrous expectations heaped upon his innocent shoulders.
Perhaps the most relevant question, though, pertains to the league Sullivan is stepping into.
MLS was ill-prepared to accommodate Freddy; is it ready to welcome Cavan, and usher him along toward superstardom?
Many in and around the league believe the answer is yes, because its infrastructure and resources have grown tremendously.
“It’s exponentially different from what it was 20 years ago,” Alecko Eskandarian, MLS’ vice president of player relations and player development, told Yahoo Sports.
‘The league has evolved a lot’
Eskandarian would know. He was 21 years old on April 3, 2004, when a fourth official held up his No. 11 and Adu’s No. 9. Eskandarian was the D.C. United star whom Adu replaced on his pro debut. He remembers 14-year-old Freddy’s skill and confidence quite fondly.
He also remembers that “Freddy got thrown into a room with adults,” as the highest-paid player in MLS before he’d even kicked a ball professionally.
“It was awkward, for sure,” Eskandarian said.
The league’s promotion of Adu, as a “messiah” who’d lift American soccer to untold prosperity and prominence, as “the biggest signing in the history of the league,” as commissioner Don Garber said, only accentuated the awkwardness — and the burden on a slender 14-year-old’s…