Cavan Sullivan is the Union’s biggest story this year, whether that’s fair or not

There have been three milestone moments in the Union’s offseason so far, and only two came at Subaru Park.

One was in November, when principal owner Jay Sugarman visibly bristled at a question about his ambitions. Another came last week, when Ernst Tanner and Bradley Carnell started the team’s next era from the same podium.

The third moment was in mid-December, and it took place thousands of miles from Chester. Union teen phenom Cavan Sullivan and his family visited Manchester City, the English Premier League superpower that he will join at the end of 2027 in a pre-set deal.

His trip was no secret. He posted about it on Instagram, and someone (presumably at Man City) sent photos to Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano. It didn’t take long for Romano to let his nearly 50 million combined followers on X and Instagram know.

» READ MORE: Is Cavan Sullivan really that good? Here’s what to know about the Union academy and its teen phenom.

The image that stood out the most was one Sullivan took himself. He attended City’s Dec. 15 home game vs. eternal city rival Manchester United, and his post from the stands included a house emoji.

As in, the place will be his home — and perhaps felt that way already.

It is possible in this world to feel at home in more than one place, whether you’re from Bridesburg or anywhere else. But Sullivan’s souvenir was a profound reminder that the clock is already ticking on his time in Union colors.

The club has three years to help its most famous young prospect win a trophy before he leaves, and likely doesn’t come back to Subaru Park for quite a while. If he lifts one, the images will go as viral as his pose with Lionel Messi last September.

» READ MORE: Cavan Sullivan got to meet his ‘idol’ Lionel Messi, and got a photo with him to treasure

If he doesn’t, given his talents, one might wonder when the Union ever will. He is that good, to be clear, already at age 15, and there’s every reason to believe he’ll keep getting better as he grows into senior-level play for the Union. Tanner, Carnell, and the rest of the coaching staff know this, and know not to sign too many players who will block his progress on the field.

(A new striker, for the record, would help, not hurt.)

Whatever Sullivan does this year, the odds are good you’ll hear about it. He’s already a big piece of Major League Soccer’s marketing strategy, even if it feels uncomfortable to put a 15-year-old in such a spotlight.

Last week’s unveiling of this year’s match ball, designed to commemorate the league’s 30th season, was a recent example. The 82-second video featured 10 of the league’s 30 teams, and the Union were one of them. Spliced among clips of the ball rolling down the Art Museum steps was Sullivan blowing a kiss to the crowd after a play with the Union’s reserve team last year. There were four other players in the frame, but only he faced the camera.

» READ MORE: Union hire Bradley Carnell as manager with hopes of developing new talent

Another moment came Thursday. MLS and documentary maker Box To Box Films launched the trailer for a series on the 2024 season that will launch on Apple TV+ (of course) on Feb. 21. They also held a press event to promote it at the league’s preseason media day in Miami. Sullivan features prominently in the series, and he spoke at the event.

“It was definitely strange — we had a mic guy, and then two people in the house, and then there were guys coming in and out, and the van in my driveway,“ he said. ”But Box To Box did a great job, and it was easy to adapt.”

Sullivan thanked the film crew for having “created a great environment with my family” when visiting their Norristown home. It’s seen in the trailer amid an interview clip with parents Brendan and Heike Sullivan.

“I worry about him, but I think he’s pretty grounded,” Heike says in the trailer, with Brendan seated next to her. Clips play over her voice of Cavan embracing his mom, then of playing in his MLS debut.

“You see him play and you’re like, ‘OK, he’s great’ — but then we were also really mindful that we were dealing with a 14-year-old kid,” executive producer Paul Martin said. “Do we really want to put the spotlight on him? And then the moment you meet the family and you meet him, you’re like, ‘OK, this kid has to be in this series.’”

» READ MORE: Union teen phenom Cavan Sullivan drew a crowd of autograph seekers on a day off in Sea Isle City

The documentary’s cameras were at Subaru Park on the night last July when Sullivan made his first-team debut. They were up close to him, too, hovering inches from the Union’s bench when Jim Curtin sent Sullivan onto the field. The company behind Netflix’s renowned “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” series knew what it was doing, and had full license to do it.

If “Onside: Major League Soccer” draws as many viewers as Box To Box’s other productions — and “Drive to Survive” is far from the only good one — then it will grow the spotlight on Sullivan even more. He seems ready for it, thanks to that grounding from his mother and the rest of a famed Philadelphia soccer family.

But are the Union?

This team has never had a player who everyone wants a piece of, in the way that happens with the other pro teams in town. Sullivan is already approaching that level, and the trend almost certainly won’t reverse in his time left in Chester.

» READ MORE: Ernst Tanner knows Union fans are frustrated, and promises improvement this year

The Union have rarely had players whom any mainstream sports fans have heard of. Sébastien Le Toux was known in town because he was the team’s first major goal scorer. Freddy Adu back in the day was already far from what he had been. Alejandro Bedoya and Andre Blake are known to those who at least know the Union exist, but that’s about it.

Brenden Aaronson could have gotten there, but his breakout year was during the pandemic so few people got to see him in person. Paxten Aaronson left a year earlier than he could have because Eintracht Frankfurt’s offer was too good to turn down. Jack McGlynn has a magic left foot, but the rest of his body hasn’t reached the next level yet.

Sullivan, even at 15, has the talent and the fame to surpass everyone who has come before him in Chester. How the Union handle that will be as much of a story for some people as how he progresses on the field.

Throughout this winter, I’ve posed a quiz to friends around the soccer world — both in the U.S. and abroad. It’s worth posing here, too.

Lionel Messi is obviously the best-known player in MLS right now. Who’s second? Probably his Inter Miami teammate Luis Suárez. Who’s third?

» READ MORE: Jay Sugarman knows there’s a ‘tension’ in the Union’s approach, and knows his key role in solving it

Every person I’ve asked, no matter how steeped they are in the game, paused for at least five seconds before responding. For me, that’s enough of an answer on its own, and a lot of the respondents agreed when I said so.

When I’ve then said that person might be Sullivan, there’s been more agreement.

That ranking ought to be a problem for MLS. There will be around 900 players across the league’s 30 teams this year, and almost all of them will have far more experience than Sullivan.

The Columbus Crew’s dazzling forward Juan “Cucho” Hernández should be No. 3, followed by other players including D.C. United’s Christian Benteke, FC Cincinnati’s Luciano Acosta, the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Gabriel Pec, and LAFC’s Olivier Giroud.

Those players are, for the record, all prolific attackers with major awards on their mantles. Hernández led the league’s most stylish team to the 2023 MLS Cup and last year’s Leagues Cup. Benteke was last year’s top scorer, and previously starred for years in the English Premier League and for Belgium.

» READ MORE: When a Union fan needed a life-saving kidney transplant, another Union fan he didn’t know stepped up

Acosta is the 2023 MVP and a three-time All-Star. Pec’s 21 goals and 18 assists last year led MLS’s most decorated team to a record sixth championship. Giroud has long been a global star, with Arsenal, Chelsea, AC Milan, and France’s 2018 World Cup title-winners (with a near-repeat in 2022).

How much have you heard about any of them? If the answer is not much — and it’s the correct answer — that’s a failure by MLS. The league has heaped so much of its marketing spotlight on Messi that it is failing yet again to achieve its most important goal: convincing soccer fans in the U.S. and Canada to support their local team on a weekly basis.

That is felt in Philadelphia as much as elsewhere, from social media to bars that fill each weekend morning for Premier League games.

The coming season is MLS’s last full campaign before the men’s World Cup comes to these shores for the first time since 1994. There’s been a belief for some time now that the league isn’t doing all it can to capitalize on that, and time is running out fast.

Can a 15-year-old on a team that’s unlikely to do well this year help change that? Probably not. But it says a lot about Cavan Sullivan that he’s being used to try.