Will Cavan Sullivan’s latest highlight-reel goal lead to a USMNT call-up? The drumbeat is growing.

Lionel Messi scored four goals for Inter Miami on Saturday night, a feat that no doubt will have given MLS the kind of global publicity it craves.

But it wasn’t the league’s only headline. In fact, for quite a few people around the league, it wasn’t the biggest.

The Union’s visit to Red Bull New York finally drew the kind of hype that U.S. national team fans have waited to see for a game in the domestic league. As with their meeting at Subaru Park soon after the World Cup final last month, it featured a slew of major prospects for the 2030 World Cup team: The Union’s Cavan and Quinn Sullivan, Frankie Westfield, and Neil Pierre against New York’s Julian Hall, Adri Mehmeti, Matthew Dos Santos, and Justin Che.

It took just one moment for the Union’s 3-1 win to live up to the billing, from the player who stood atop all of them on the marquee.

Cavan Sullivan’s sixth goal for the Union’s first team was easily his most sensational yet: A perfect jumping trap of Danley Jean Jacques’ cross-field pass, a cut left into the 18-yard box, and lashing shot to the far post.

It sent jaws dropping from north Jersey to Chester and well beyond, perhaps even to his future home at Manchester City. (Or at least it would have when they woke up Sunday morning over there, as it was just before 2 a.m. in England when the play happened.)

» READ MORE: Cavan Sullivan’s wondergoal helps the Union to a 3-1 rout of Red Bull New York

“This was the first moment of a really special individual play for one of his goals,” interim Union manager Ryan Richter said. “So that was cool.”

The trap alone was a special play, and Richter rightly insisted that the pass was its own highlight. Jean Jacques hit it inch-perfect into open space on the right flank.

Sullivan then brought the ball down before it could hit the turf, with the kind of first touch that makes soccer scouts worldwide swoon. All the more when it’s done by a 16-year-old — and yes, with an extra layer when that teen is an American. The world has gotten used to this country winning men’s World Cup games, but it’s sometimes still surprised when a Yank shows such skill.

There was no guarantee a goal would follow, though, not least since Sullivan had passed up a chance to fire from atop the box in the first half. This time, he charged past Dos Santos and shot before a sliding Ronald Donkor could get there.

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It really was a breathtaking play.

“The first half, I didn’t think that he was at his best: A couple opportunities where he had a chance to make a play that didn’t come off in the way that you know he can, and then a couple defensive lapses, I thought … [where] he got outplayed a little too bit too easily,” Richter said. “But the second half, he fixed what he needed to fix, and he got going in the game.”

Then came a moment where Richter could watch just like the rest of us.

“The goal that he scored, it’s what he’s capable of doing,” he said. “In these one-v-one situations, he’s different, and we want to give him the freedom to to express himself. And honestly, he has gained the respect of his teammates, that they also give him the freedom that he can go in these moments, because they know that he can create something out of it.”

» READ MORE: The Union are close to a deal to bring back Mark McKenzie

The drumbeat has grown louder for Sullivan to earn his first senior U.S. national team call-up for the four-game friendly run in September and October. Indeed, quite a few observers think Mauricio Pochettino should call up Pierre and Westfield, too.

Pierre has turned just as many heads in the know as Sullivan lately, and turned more with his latest goal Saturday — his fourth in nine Union first-team games this year.

“He’s growing every week, and you guys are watching the same thing I am: he looks like a top center back in this league,” Richter said. “He has to keep pushing, and keep his feet on the ground, and focus in the right way, and become the best center back in this league. That should be his target — but that’s a day-to-day thing that he has to keep pushing to get better and better.”

Westfield, meanwhile, has become the leading candidate to be the starting right back on the 2028 Olympic team.

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Andrew Rick and Quinn Sullivan could also merit consideration, given their past work for Pochettino and Rick’s potential to make the 2028 squad.

Asked whether Cavan should get the call, Richter answered promptly: “That’s not my job to influence that one way or the other.”

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t allowed to, and he snuck in a little of it.

“If you’re watching the games — which, the national team staff, I’m sure they are watching these games — then he’s making a case for himself,” Richter said.

The squad should be announced in mid-September, which means the Union probably have three more games before then: Saturday at home vs. CF Montréal (now with Chilean legend Alexis Sánchez), Sept. 9 at home vs. FC Cincinnati, then the year’s longest road trip to visit San Diego FC on Sept. 13.

» READ MORE: Mauricio Pochettino stays on as USMNT manager, and promises things won’t stay the same

(And yes, this writer hears those of you ready to pounce on Richter saying “watching the games.” Four years into MLS’s streaming deal with Apple, no Union-related subject still draws more emails than the lack of games on traditional TV. So take note that the Cincinnati game will be on FS1.)

The two weeks left for the U.S. staff to judge the Union will go by quickly. But they’ve got plenty of evidence now, especially with Cavan Sullivan, Pierre, and Westfield.

So does ever more of the soccer world.