A Bridesburg basement and three older brothers helped Cavan Sullivan become the future of U.S. Soccer

The basement on Almond Street didn’t have much, but it had one of those old couches that every basement needs.

“The one that you know is comfy just by looking at it,” Quinn Sullivan said.

The Bridesburg basement, half of which was unfinished, became a clubhouse for the four Sullivan brothers. The miniature soccer net was all Quinn, Declan, Ronan, and Cavan needed to fill an afternoon. And Cavan, the youngest of the four, did whatever he could to keep up as he played in a diaper and learned to volley a ball with both feet when he was just 18 months.

It was impossible to know that the seeds of Cavan’s career — perhaps the most promising in the history of American soccer — were being planted on Almond Street where Brendan and Heike Sullivan never told their sons that there was “no ball in the house.”

» READ MORE: For all the hype, Cavan Sullivan has genuinely earned his moment on the USMNT’s biggest stage

The boys caromed soccer balls off the living room radiator, played football in the kitchen, broke light bulbs in the basement, and got into some scraps. The parents were just letting their boys play, their mom said.

But there was something different about the toddler who knew how to catch a football.

“Like you throw it at him and he has his hands up,” said Brendan. “He’s not catching with his chest. He’s catching it with his hands. He caught a baseball with his glove. So you know but you don’t know the extent to how different it is.”

The soccer world soon saw what the Sullivans saw in their basement.

Cavan was deemed a prodigy when he was 6 years old and European powers scouted him before he was a teen. He signed his Philadelphia Union contract when he was 14, giving him the chance to play professionally alongside Quinn. He has an agreement to join England’s Manchester City next year when he turns 18, and is training this week for the first time with the senior U.S. men’s national team.

Even more? He’s a safe bet to play for the U.S. in the 2028 Olympics and then the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

The kid from Bridesburg could be the future of American soccer. It started on Almond Street.

“My dad would be in the net and we would just shoot on him all day, whenever we got the chance,” Cavan said of that old basement. “You fall in love with the game in moments like that.”

It happened so fast that the Sullivans couldn’t really tell what happened from their seats at Subaru Park. Did Cavan get punched? Did Quinn just go nose-to-nose with Lionel Messi?

Then they watched the replay of the fracas between the Union and Inter Miami, a skirmish that felt like the ones the parents — who met as college soccer players at Penn — used to break up in the backyard.

A Miami player tried to step over a fallen Quinn — “You got the wrong guy, buddy,” his dad said — before Quinn hooked his leg and took him to the ground like a UFC fighter.

A swarm of Miami players gathered around Quinn as Cavan sprinted across the field like his brother’s tag-team partner. Quinn used to spend hours on his computer cutting up Cavan’s game tapes and posting the highlights to YouTube. That was support, Quinn said. So of course the little brother had his back last month.

» READ MORE: ‘Brothers’ Cavan Sullivan, Frankie Westfield, and Neil Pierre getting called up to the USMNT together is ‘another level’

“It’s like ‘You better go in,’” said 18-year-old Ronan, who plays at St. Joe’s with his twin brother, Declan. “He would’ve gotten s— if he didn’t. It’s a lot about where we came from. That’s Northeast Philly right there.”

Cavan squared up against a 25-year-old foe who tried to throw a punch at the 16-year-old boy. Both players were sent off and Messi then slapped Sullivan in the head, appearing to reprimand him for taking down the Miami player. Quinn Sullivan, who grew up idolizing Messi, charged his hero and pushed his face against his.

“I was raised in Philly and you don’t take disrespect,” said Quinn, 22. “It might sound corny to some people or cliche, but I didn’t like him touching my face and I’m not going to be the guy who falls down. I had to make sure he knew that I didn’t think it was cool.”

It was Cavan’s footwork, speed, and skill that drew the world’s attention. But it is his fearlessness — the mentality that allowed a 16-year-old to run last month toward the fire — that sets him apart.

“There’s a little bit of a flair, a confidence, an arrogance,” said Taylor Twellman, the former U.S. player who now broadcasts MLS games on Apple TV. “But there’s also a real urgency to win, to compete. For a 16-year-old kid, I can see that there’s a little bit of a dog in him. You know what I mean?”

And it’s all about where he’s from. His grandfather, Larry, grew up in Kensington and played at North Catholic. His dad grew up in Juniata Park and played at St. Joe’s Prep. His uncle John Albright played at Frankford and his cousin Chris Albright went from Northeast Philly to the World Cup. Those guys were as tough as the cinders they often played on and they passed that grit down like an heirloom.

» READ MORE: Union alum Auston Trusty embraces being a USMNT role model for Cavan Sullivan and Neil Pierre

For generations, soccer was the sport in the Northeast Philly neighborhoods. And there was only one way to play.

Cavan always played two years ahead of his age group, which teamed him with the twins and allowed his parents to be at just two games every weekend instead of three. He held his own, just like he did in the basement.

Eventually, they figured, his age would catch up to him. It never happened, which is what allowed YSC Academy — the school connected to the Union Youth Academy — to see if Cavan could skip two grades and start seventh grade with his brothers. He handled that, too.

“We never really thought of him as younger,” said Declan, 18. “I feel like because he was always in our circle, hanging with our friends, he was always like our age in our head. He’s mature for his age and part of that is because he was always around kids who were older than him.”

Brendan coached Cavan’s first team at Lighthouse, which the son described as a group of “aggressive and eager kids” who just went out and played. They didn’t have private training but Cavan had a dad who was committed to teaching them the things he learned from his dad.

Brendan drilled his sons in Ocean City, often turning two-hour sessions into four-hour slogs while Heike waited to go to the beach. They played games their dad invented like “Gauntlet” and “Thirty Seconds of Hell” and debate what was worse: the burning of your quad muscles or the ringing in your ears from the fiery coach.

They practiced more on the beach and the boys remember being the last ones to leave travel tournaments while their dad gave instruction long after the final whistle. He was intense, but the boys learned to love it. Quinn said his dad always told his sons he loved them, even when they fell short. He taught his sons to play hard.

And that’s why the brothers from Almond Street weren’t afraid of Messi and Co.

“I love that Quinn didn’t back down in the face of Messi, a guy he has tremendous respect for,” Brendan said. “But you’re still just a dude on the field, same as me. We laced our boots up the same way today. I’m not backing down.

“The old saying goes, ‘If you’re looking for a fight from someone from Philadelphia, you’re more than likely going to get it.’ That’s how we’re raised here. You don’t back down. Stand your ground.”

Cavan left Sunday for Atlanta, where he’s training for the first time with the U.S. team and beginning a journey that could make him the star of the next World Cup. He’ll likely earn his first national team appearance before returning to the Union.

But before he boarded his flight, Cavan needed to get his hair right. So his mom, who used to bleach her husband’s hair in the 1990s when he played pro soccer in New York, got to work.

“I looked like a Duracell battery,” said Brendan as his old hair was more copper than blonde. “Cavan gets the extra love.”

Cavan looks the part of a star with his bleached hair, eyebrow slit, and gold chains. He breezes through interviews like he beats defenders as no question seems to trip him up. He’s been in modeling campaigns for non-soccer brands, was photographed this summer by Annie Leibovitz, and has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram.

» READ MORE: The Union are changing the narrative around the fate of their season in real time

He plays the game like a showman and often tops goals with choreographed celebrations like the time he threw chalk in the air as an homage to LeBron James.

“That’s him,” said Union teammate Frankie Westfield, who grew up in Morrell Park and is with Cavan with the U.S. team. “That’s how he performs. Even in the locker room and in training, he’s dancing around. I don’t want to say he doesn’t care because he cares so much, but I think just playing loose and free makes him what he is. He brings a whole new vibe.”

Cavan has the makings to be more than just a soccer star.

The spotlight on Cavan has become in recent months as bright as his hair. But the kid seems comfortable in it, managing the attention with ease despite being just 16.

“I think I just understand that I haven’t really done anything yet,” he said. “There hasn’t been anything major that I’ve done. I’m still trying to prove myself and make my mark on the city and on the club. I always want more. I always want to be the best. When you focus on it that way, it’s natural to just avoid all the other stuff.”

Quinn remembers driving Cavan home from their Union practice and how the younger brother would be breaking down footage from the session and sending clips to his dad for feedback. He’s always thinking about the game.

He doesn’t count his social media likes or chase clout and even remarked to his brother how he couldn’t get his latest ridiculous goal — a beautiful backheeled tip — off his timeline.

“I was like ‘Dude, you have to hit the not interested button,’” Quinn said. “But he deals with it well. It comes with the game. It comes with being the type of player he is.”

Perhaps Cavan’s ability to shrug at attention goes to how his parents treated him and his brothers. They talked to their kids about the games on the way home and then treated them like kids when they walked in the front door.

Cavan could be playing next year in Europe, but he still has chores at home. And the Sullivans never posted — “I did a couple times,” Heike admitted — about their children on social media.

“Why would you?” Brendan said. “There’s no need to talk about how you won a tournament or had a hat trick. You don’t brag about anything. This is his normal. It’s not normal to us, but he looks at it as his normal. So it’s weird for him if this is his normal. But then again, we don’t talk a whole lot about it. We never gave him media practice. He just knows, ‘Don’t sound like a jerk.’”

» READ MORE: Before Ryan Richter became the Union’s interim manager, he was a hooper from Bucks County with Iverson-like swag

Cavan never played the game for attention or accolades. He became a child star, but he wasn’t groomed for it. His parents declined interviews over the years and other media projects.

The Sullivans knew they had a phenom, but they didn’t publicize him, not even on Facebook. They treated him like a kid, his mom said, because he was a kid. It was that simple.

“This wasn’t something we were seeking out,” Heike said. “And maybe that attitude prepared him to not make a big deal out of it.”

The Sullivans left Almond Street in 2018 for Norristown and the allure of a driveway, a backyard, and extra bedrooms. There’s not much to complain about. But they still miss things about the old neighborhood.

There was a corner store where a dollar was enough to score a handful of candy. Brendan can still taste the polish kielbasa and his sons remember the fear they felt as a 4-year-old walking alone around the corner to their grandparents and the pride of making it there safely. There was Wiffle ball and basketball with the neighbors, riding bikes through the cemetery, and playing for hours on the sidewalk.

“Simple stuff,” Brendan said.

» READ MORE: Benny McLaughlin was a Philly soccer pioneer. He couldn’t get off work to play in the World Cup.

Philadelphia’s soccer scene was born in neighborhoods like Bridesburg, where European immigrants brought the game decades ago when they came to work in factories along the Delaware River. Rowhouses — just like the one on Almond Street — produced pioneers like Walter Bahr and Benny McLaughlin. The Northeast is where Chris Albright and Bobby Convey, teammates on the 2006 U.S. World Cup squad, grew up. The cinder fields was where Don D’Ambra and Dave MacWilliams made their mark.

The same neighborhood that shaped Sullivan is what powered Philadelphia soccer for generations. He’s only 16 years old and he soon could be the face of a sport. But he was not an overnight sensation. Cavan’s emergence was generations in the making. Just the ones who came before him, he’s a kid from the neighborhood.

The Sullivans left Bridesburg years ago. The basement now belongs to someone else. But the memories? They’ll always belong to the four brothers.

“Northeast Philly sort of shaped me in a way,” Cavan said. “It was just a great place to be.”

» READ MORE: Follow the Inquirer's complete coverage of Philly soccer right here!