Freddy Adu's Watch Has Ended. 14-Year-Old Cavan Sullivan Becomes Youngest Player To Make MLS Debut With The Philadelphia Union
Most 14-year-old kids in the Philly area find a summer job working for their uncle's landscaping company, or at a local pizza shop, or maybe their family has a shore house and they find a job on the boardwalk. Either way, they're making about $15.50 an hour for a few hours a day. It's the first time they've had any money of their own in their pocket, so they're pumped about it. They have enough to go grab some pizza with their friends, and get their hands on some of the cheapest beer one of their older brothers with a fake ID can buy for them. It's not a bad way to spend the summer.
Then you have 14-year-old Cavan Sullivan whose summer job is a professional soccer player. A kid who joined the Philadelphia Union Academy at 10-years-old, signed his first MLS contract back in May, and needed to make his MLS debut by July 29th if he wanted to break Freddy Adu's record for the youngest player to make his debut in any of the top North American professional sports leagues.
Luckily for him, the Union were dog walking the New England Revolution last night 5-1 in the 84th minute and gave Jim Curtin the perfect time to throw in the kid.
Now there are a ton of people out there who have to be ecstatic for this kid to make his debut. Primarily his friends and family, which include his brother who also plays for the Union.
But nobody has to be more pumped about Cavan Sullivan becoming the youngest player to make his MLS debut than Freddy Adu.
It sucks for Freddy that he had all of the expectations of soccer in the United States thrown on his shoulders at 14. He couldn't even drive himself to practice and he had the whole world thinking that USA had the next Pele. Obviously we all know how the rest of his career panned out. He was just a really, really good 14-year-old soccer player with unfair expectations placed on him that now make his career seem like a joke. But now his watch has ended. He's not longer the youngest player to make his MLS debut anymore, and Freddy Adu can move on peacefully.
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As for Cavan Sullivan? Well I don't think there's the same sense here that everybody is expecting him to be some savior for US Soccer. I don't think people are expecting USA to win a World Cup anytime soon because Cavan Sullivan is on the way. So maybe he can just enjoy being a freakishly talented young player who can take his time to develop his game without having to deal with all the extra stress that comes from those unrealistic expectations.