{"id":22045,"date":"2026-02-27T20:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=22045"},"modified":"2026-02-27T20:27:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:27:21","slug":"unions-cavan-sullivan-16-makes-u-s-history-with-1st-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=22045","title":{"rendered":"Union&#8217;s Cavan Sullivan, 16, makes U.S. history with 1st goals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-meta\"><span class=\"timestamp \">Feb 27, 2026, 12:50 PM ET<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Hailed as the <a data-league-guid=\"d9d3698e-67b3-3ca5-9eb4-f23b8e19a464\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/USA.1\">MLS<\/a>&#8216; teen soccer sensation, 16-year-old <a data-player-guid=\"91ac4035-188a-3f3e-bc56-b9feb45e5afd\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/384397\/cavan-sullivan\">Cavan Sullivan<\/a> delivered an American scoring record with his first professional goals for the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"669bfb78-a442-cc53-35f1-2eacacf50a7a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=10739\">Philadelphia Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sullivan broke through with the game of his young &#8212; very, very young &#8212; career when he scored twice and had two assists to lead the Union to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/matchstats\/_\/gameId\/762632\">7-0<\/a> win over Defense Force FC on Thursday night in the Concacaf Champions Cup &#8212; the North American equivalent of the UEFA Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s another moment in the right direction,&#8221; Union coach Bradley Carnell said.<\/p>\n<p>Sullivan became the youngest American goal scorer in a Concacaf Champions Cup game at 16 years, 4 months, 29 days.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It means a lot,&#8221; Sullivan said. &#8220;It took a long time in my eyes. I wish I had it sooner. This is a special moment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><img fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\" \/><figcaption class=\"photoCaption\">Philadelphia Union midfielder Cavan Sullivan celebrates scoring his first senior goal.\u00a0<cite>Terence Lewis\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>At 14 years, 293 days, Sullivan is believed to have been the youngest player to appear in a game for any major North American professional sports league when he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/watch\/player?id=40585674&amp;bamenv=dev\">made his July 2024 debut for the Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The hype surrounding Sullivan has mushroomed by the day in MLS and could go global by the time he is expected to transfer to <a data-league-guid=\"6949f3af-300c-35f1-beab-b95669eedd38\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/ENG.1\">Premier League<\/a> powerhouse <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"94fd5d7e-35b1-9d52-c9f2-4a37259bea36\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=382\">Manchester City<\/a> at the end of 2027 when he is 18.<\/p>\n<p>Sullivan&#8217;s first goal Thursday was a left-footed blast into the net that made him the third-youngest goal scorer in Concacaf Champions Cup history. He added an 88th-minute tap-in after starting the attack.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Happy to score my first goal,&#8221; Sullivan said. &#8220;Two of them, actually. It was pretty special. More important is the clean sheet in the win and we advance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Union advanced 12-0 on aggregate &#8212; Philadelphia won 5-0 on Feb. 18 in <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"85fe7d64-ada4-f855-b8e4-d4f412fe3d69\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=2627\">Trinidad and Tobago<\/a> &#8212; over the two legs and will next play Mexican team Club Am\u00e9rica.<\/p>\n<p>The 5-foot-7, 150-pound Sullivan led the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"e6b65d49-258c-b730-b7db-df75c6b1f714\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=660\">United States<\/a> to victory in the 2023 Concacaf Under-15 Championship, which marked the first time the U.S. ever won the tournament. The youngest player on the team, Sullivan&#8217;s four goals scored earned him the Golden Ball as the best player in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Sullivan and the Union will play their MLS home opener Sunday against <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"d902d6f8-8673-29e3-15d9-3ef4c12ce9d0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=17606\">New York City FC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think I&#8217;ve sort of made some good impact when I came in,&#8221; Sullivan said. &#8220;At this level, things get faster, things get harder.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/48055095\/philadelphia-union-cavan-sullivan-goals-concacaf-champions-cup\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feb 27, 2026, 12:50 PM ET Hailed as the MLS&#8216; teen soccer sensation, 16-year-old Cavan Sullivan delivered an American scoring record with his first professional goals for the Philadelphia Union. Sullivan broke through with the game of his young &#8212; very, very young &#8212; career when he scored twice and had two assists to lead &#8230; <a title=\"Union&#8217;s Cavan Sullivan, 16, makes U.S. history with 1st goals\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=22045\" aria-label=\"Read more about Union&#8217;s Cavan Sullivan, 16, makes U.S. history with 1st goals\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Unions-Cavan-Sullivan-16-makes-US-history-with-1st-goals.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22047,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22045\/revisions\/22047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}