Cavan Sullivan’s first international goal arrived in a manner that seemed pulled straight from dreamland. Handed a start for the United States against Mexico on Saturday, the 17-year-old intercepted a poor pass from goalkeeper Raúl Rangel and chipped him from 35 yards, then set off on a full sprint towards the corner flag for the knee slide he had already pictured. The goal made him the youngest scorer in the program’s history and helped carry the USMNT to a 3-0 win.
“I was amazed. I was excited,” Sullivan said of learning he would start. “I texted my family right after, and after lunch, I took a nap. Before I go to sleep, I visualize and try to manifest good things for the night. Some things come to fruition, some don’t.”
What he had visualized, specifically, was the celebration. “That wasn’t the way I pictured scoring a goal, but the celebration was,” he said.
The more striking aspect of Sullivan’s moment, beyond its historic nature, is how ordinary it has become in this window. Of the 13 potential debutants called in by Mauricio Pochettino, all but one have seen the field, most of them impressing. Julian Hall, 18, has scored in all three of his appearances. Mathis Albert broke Christian Pulisic’s decade-old benchmark to become the youngest goalscorer in USMNT history and held that record for four days before Sullivan took it from him.
These are not soft landings. Peru and Chile missed this summer’s World Cup, but they are far from pushovers; while the US struggled to keep them off the scoreboard, the Americans made up for defensive miscues with a commitment to attacking, scoring four goals in each friendly. The window was set to be even more revealing in its second half, with Saturday’s win over Mexico followed by a Tuesday meeting with Canada. Newly appointed captain Tyler Adams has said these games will help determine the region’s top dog, and Canada — in Jesse Marsch’s second cycle at the helm — will hardly give an inch.
Against Mexico, the young side had to weather a storm first. Pochettino’s team could not get much going in the attacking half for most of the opening 45 minutes, stymied by a man-marking scheme that was appreciated by the El Tri faithful, whose numbers in the stadium dwarfed those of the US support. A lineup with an average age of 23 years and 25 days, as Pochettino put it, “suffered together” without conceding — until a shock US opener flipped the script.
“It’s really important to play this type of game,” Pochettino said. “To build our experience, to know what [is needed] to play this type of game, and the adversity. I think it will help when we start the qualification for the World Cup. I think that experience will help the team to manage the pressure and stress in a different way. You need to feel that.”
Crucially, that experience is arriving in areas of genuine need. Diego Kochen has been the standout of the four selected goalkeepers, more confident commanding his area than Chris Brady and more natural in possession than Matt Freese. Sullivan has quickly found ways to affect the game from right wing, a role Pochettino largely entrusted to Sergiño Dest throughout the World Cup summer. Hall’s off-ball movement makes him another capable goalscorer as an alternative to Folarin Balogun — and further competition for Ricardo Pepi. Albert and Justin Ellis look like dynamic options in transition, while Neil Pierre and Adri Mehmeti could prove useful additions in central defence and midfield respectively.
“They’re battling for it, and I love to see it,” centre-back Chris Richards said on Saturday. “I mean, the young guys, they’re hungry. They have a bit of swag to them, and that’s something that I’ve been very impressed with.”
This mass debut event differs considerably from the last one, which followed the US’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. That period produced Adams, Weston McKennie, Antonee Robinson and Tim Weah, giving the fanbase sorely needed fresh faces — but they joined a team with few, if any, senior figures around for the rebuild. This time, the young players can find their sea legs without the added pressure.
“I think the balance that we’ve been able to have in lineups, surrounding them with guys that have experience, they can go under the radar for some parts of the game,” Adams said. “They don’t have to put in crazy, crazy performances. We just want to get them in the good spots where they’re comfortable to score goals, to go 1v1, to show the qualities that they have, and we were able to do that.”
The task now is keeping the good vibes of this camp from proving an aberration, and avoiding the wild fluctuations that have defined much of Pochettino’s tenure so far. “We need to protect them. We need to support them,” Pochettino said. “Our responsibility now is [ensuring] that this group of talented players [will] grow in the right direction. Today, they were so excited to play. Again in St Louis, against Chile, they were so excited, and they were so excited in playing against Peru in Orlando. We need to continue with that idea, keep that feeling. Every time that they can be part of this national team is the most important. OK, maybe it’s tough to say that, but I think that is what we expect [as] a coaching staff. It’s not ‘play well or not’. It’s that commitment and the desire to play, that today is the best and the most important game in your life. That is what we try to translate. We need to come to the national team for business, not for fun, and that is what is most important.”