‘Cavan is special’: Union’s Ernst Tanner says Cavan Sullivan is one of the best he’s ever seen

Union sporting director Ernst Tanner has had a hand in developing many soccer stars in his long career.

Before he got to the Union, he made his name in Europe by finding little-known prospects and making them big-time. Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, Borussia Dortmund’s Karim Adeyemi, Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai, and former Liverpool and Brazil star Roberto Firmino are just a few.

Since arriving in Chester, Tanner has launched a fleet of Union youngsters toward European spotlights, especially Brenden and Paxten Aaronson and Mark McKenzie. As many fans know by now, Jack McGlynn is next in line.

Now Cavan Sullivan is headed toward that launchpad. The 14-year-old attacking midfield starlet turned pro with the Union on Thursday, and there’s an agreement to sell him to Man City when he turns 18.

Where does Tanner rank Sullivan among the prospects he’s seen, even at such a young age?

“He is certainly matching up with the likes of Szoboszlai, etc., in that stage,” he said. “He’s certainly that good. I’ve seen a lot of real promising talent, but I would say Cavan is certainly top three.”

» READ MORE: Why Cavan Sullivan, hyped as the world’s best 14-year-old soccer player, chose to turn pro with the Union

It’s not yet known how much money Sullivan will make in his first pro deal. But it is known that the Union petitioned MLS headquarters to break the homegrown player salary cap, which is just over $200,000, to match the money that European clubs offered.

The league agreed, and agreed to an unprecedented deal where City’s future acquisition is already set. Those are big signs of how important Sullivan is.

“We needed the league, otherwise it would never have gotten done,” Tanner said. “And finally, we could get it done.”

It’s also a sign of how important it is to the league’s reputation, not just the Union’s, that he start his pro career here instead of in Europe. Though Lionel Messi gets the overwhelming majority of MLS’s marketing hype, the best thing the league does — and the biggest thing for long-term success — is develop young players.

Casual fans who tune in to see Sullivan won’t get to actually see him in a first-team game for a while. The Union will be intentionally patient with his development. But that is one of the biggest upsides to his signing here instead of with a European team that would throw him into the deep end without caring about him personally.

“That’s exactly what I’m telling most of our boys who are dreaming their dream too early,” Tanner said. “They all see that Europe is more or less the soccer-specific milk and honey land, but the reality is pretty different. … I always tell them, hey, it’s even better if you get over to Europe as a stable player where you have transitioned well into men’s soccer.”

So the pathway is there for Sullivan, and everyone is ready to follow it.

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

“We need to establish him in the second team, and once he is really getting over that level on the second team, he might need to train with the first team, and then we need to see how quick we can get him on the field with the first team,” Tanner said. “But there is no rush, because we can’t take away from him that he needs to develop and needs to get ready to play.”

Tanner also framed the matter in a fan-first way.

“We don’t want to present an unfinished product on the first team to our spectators,” he said. “They deserve to get to see real players.”

But the time will come eventually — and yes, it could come later this year. The Leagues Cup tournament in the late summer would make a lot more sense for a debut than a regular-season game.

“We need to see how quickly it goes,” Tanner said. “Maybe it takes two years, maybe it goes quicker — we are all not seers. But I can only say something: If he is going ahead in his development like he was doing in the last half-year, it can get really quick.”

He promptly balanced that optimism with caution: “That would also not be natural.”

Sullivan has already played for the Union’s reserves a few times as an amateur. While he hasn’t looked out of place skill-wise, he’s clearly still not a physical match for players around him who are multiple years older.

» READ MORE: Cavan Sullivan wants ‘to win the World Cup with the USA’

“There’s a big difference even between the under-17 [team] and the second team, in particular for a 14-year-old — we’ve seen that already,” Tanner said. “And we know that there’s even a bigger difference between the second team and the first team, in terms of competitiveness and physicality. That’s what we need to see and evaluate, and then put him on the right level. The good news is we have all these levels available.”

The other good news is that the Union reserve team’s games are easy to watch. Many are streamed in Apple’s MLS Season Pass package, and some are free on the reserve league’s website, MLSNextPro.com. Tickets to watch games in person at Subaru Park are just $12, general admission, and Union season ticket-holders can go to three games a year for free. (The next home game isn’t until June 2.)

If you watch the Union’s reserves, you’ll see that the club is continuing a remarkable track record of developing creative midfielders.

It’s not bluster to say that the Union might be the best in MLS at this, with seven such players reaching the first team in the last six years. The Aaronson brothers and Anthony Fontana are now in Europe. McGlynn, David Vazquez, and Cavan’s brother, Quinn Sullivan, are with the Union’s first team now.

“It means that we are obviously doing a good job in detecting and nurturing talent, and believe me, that’s not the end,” Tanner said. “There are great talents already over in Europe, there are great talents at the moment playing in our first team, and there are a lot of really great talents in our second [reserve] team as we all have seen this season.”

» READ MORE: For Jim Curtin, Cavan Sullivan signing with the Union is a ‘full-circle moment’

Some of those reserve-team talents have played for the under-17 squad, which is the two-time reigning champion of the prestigious Generation Adidas Cup.

Last year, Vazquez helped the under-17s beat Brazil’s Palmeiras along the way — and Sullivan helped the under-15 squad beat Spain’s Real Madrid and England’s Arsenal. This year, Sullivan helped the under-17s beat Croatia’s Hajduk Split, then his teammates topped Brazil’s Flamengo (Sullivan was suspended with a red card).

“If you can beat the crème de la crème in soccer academies of the whole world, that tells you something,” Tanner said. “When we compare to [teams] outside of our country and are even better, that’s pretty astonishing for a young system. They have a history, and they have a culture, of decades in their talent identification and developing process.”

The Union have existed for only 15 years, and didn’t really start spending big on youth development until 11 years ago, when YSC Academy opened.

“That tells you a lot about the value of all these efforts we have done, and the quality which is in our academy and our club,” Tanner said.

Sullivan is the latest, and greatest, symbol of that.

“There’s a lot coming,” Tanner said. “But even so, we all know that Cavan is special. You don’t have a talent like him every five years.”

A person who’s seen enough of them over decades would know.

» READ MORE: Union fans should treasure watching Jack McGlynn, because they might not be able to for much longer