Cavan Sullivan: The Rising Star in U.S. Soccer

Cavan Sullivan is 16 years old and already carrying the weight of a conversation usually reserved for finished products, not kids still figuring out high school. Three goals in three games against seasoned professionals have changed the tone around him. He’s not just a prospect anymore. He’s a problem for defenders – and a question for the national team.

Tim Howard has already made up his mind.

“In the next four years, there are going to be 115 players that play for the national team,” he said on the Unfiltered Podcast. “Who’s better than this kid? Who’s better than this kid that doesn’t deserve an opportunity? I’m not saying he plays every game, but he should be in the conversation to be playing every game.”

Howard’s point cut through the noise. The U.S. does not have the luxury of pretending it’s Brazil or Argentina, churning out wave after wave of generational talent.

“For all the naysayers out there, I’m not saying to gift this kid something he hasn’t earned on a silver platter,” he added. “I’m saying we are not Brazil, Argentina, Holland, Spain, England, Germany. We don’t produce these players.”

Sullivan doesn’t shy away from that stage. He wants it.

He told Alexi Lalas’ State of the Union podcast that he watched the USMNT’s game against Belgium and pictured himself on the field. “Thinking about that Belgium game, I think I could come into that game on the right side and make a difference,” he said. “You have to believe in yourself. You have to think you can help your team win. Obviously it’s not my team yet, but I’m always dreaming and hoping for call-ups.”

He’s not alone in that belief. Zavier Gozo, now at Crystal Palace, is chasing the same dream from a slightly different angle.

Gozo came close to the last World Cup, close enough to feel the sting. The then-Real Salt Lake winger landed on the USMNT’s preliminary list but never made the final cut. Mauricio Pochettino decided it was too early to bring an uncapped teenager into a World Cup squad. Gozo moved to England and turned that disappointment into fuel.

“I do think I deserved to be there. I’m going to be honest,” he told The Late Run. “But obviously it’s the coach’s choice. Maybe he didn’t think I was ready, or whatever it is, but it just put a fire under me to make the next World Cup and show why I should be there.”

Pochettino’s Line: Talent vs. Timing

So how does Pochettino decide when “next” becomes “now”?

There’s no formula. No age threshold. No magic number of club minutes. He keeps coming back to the same word: ready.

Workload doesn’t scare him. Not with teenagers.

“I know the mindset of the coaches,” he said. “Sometimes the coaches say, ‘Oh, I have a 17-year-old guy that plays in the MLS, but when the national team calls, we say no because they need to rest’. If you’re 17, and you need to rest? Yeah, we have a big problem.”

The real test, in his eyes, lives in the space between the ears.

He looks for maturity first, long before he thinks about a name on a team sheet. These kids have talent; that’s the entry fee. What matters is how they carry it. Are they still grinding? Are they still trying to get better? How do they treat people around them?

“I think respect is the most important thing, and they need to be respectful,” Pochettino said. “And of course, we want players with talent. We want players who feel brave, feel confident, but not feel things they don't show. I think you are only entitled to talk a little bit out of order if you are Messi.

“If you win eight Ballon d'Ors, okay, you can talk with a certain arrogance, but even then, … if you are young and you start to talk that you can play here, you can play there, or you can play. I say, I don't believe that this is the right way to build your career in the best way, no. And that is why we need to be careful.”

Every position, every pathway, is different. Some roles are clogged. Others are crying out for new blood.

Goalkeeper is the perfect example. Plenty of candidates, only one jersey. Pochettino knows he can’t just hand out opportunities there, but he also knows he can’t freeze the depth chart in time.

“I think we are going to give some [opportunities] to some new players, not only in that position, but in different positions,” he explained. “We’ll have the possibility to add a new player and to give them the possibility. I think for us now it’s about not only thinking about today, but also to think about the future and 2030.”

Olympic Push, Gold Cup Lessons

Pochettino’s horizon stretches far beyond the next friendly window. The 2030 World Cup sits in the distance, but major checkpoints loom much closer.

The Olympic Games are around the corner. A Gold Cup is coming. A Copa America could be in the mix. All of it demands coordination with Steve Cherundolo, who leads the U.S. U-23s.

The plan is to bleed a few youngsters into the senior side now, give them caps, then send them back to anchor an Olympic run. That doesn’t mean the USMNT will suddenly become an age-group experiment. Pochettino still leans heavily on his veterans.

The scars of 2018 still sit in the background. After missing that World Cup, the U.S. essentially tore the group down and started again, promoting a wave of youngsters and moving on from experienced players who might have had more to give. It worked on the field. Those kids became the core.

But something lingered. What did they lose without veterans around them?

That question came roaring back around the 2025 Gold Cup, when Christian Pulisic and Yunus Musah chose rest over another summer of national team duty. Former players questioned their commitment. Fair or not, it exposed a deeper fear: had the program cut ties with the old guard too quickly, leaving a leadership void?

Pochettino isn’t about to repeat that kind of reset. Not now.

Some veterans will be phased out. That’s inevitable. But the process will be slower, more controlled, and designed to help both the newcomers and the ones already carrying the shirt.

“I'd say it's a continuation of the last two cycles I've been a part of, just because I just know that's how it works,” USMNT defender Chris Richards told GOAL. “It's not like you just completely sack off the team that was at the World Cup and move on from there.”

Inside the New Hierarchy

Richards now finds himself in the middle of this transition. He’s no longer the kid trying to break in. At Crystal Palace, he shares a dressing room with Gozo, who is living that chase.

Seeing Gozo’s hunger has given Richards a fresh angle on the national team grind. For Pochettino, players like Richards are essential. They bridge eras. They set standards without blocking pathways.

“We cannot bring a whole squad of young players, no, because they need to have some guys with experience already competing,” Pochettino said. “Yes, we are going to do a mix. Our idea is we are going to do a mix between experienced players… I think experienced players and young players can fit together and start to work and see how the young kids start to manage the pressure to play in the first team in some really nice games.”

The message to the next wave is clear: talent gets you noticed; habits get you picked.

Pochettino says he watches everything. Not just goals, assists, or clean sheets. The small details tell him who is ready for a call that can change a life.

“It's important not only to see them or watch the games, the performance, but also what they are talking about in the media, how they behave with the opponent, how they behave with their teammates,” he said. “I think it's so important. We want to be a very good team. We want to build something different and be competitive.”

He tracks how they speak to coaches. When they arrive at training. How long they stay after. For him, those daily habits either match his standards or fall short. There’s no hiding place.

All of it matters. And he is keeping score.

The Clock to 2030

The challenge for Pochettino is timing. At club level, he could nurture a player over weeks and months, watch them every day, and feel the exact moment to promote them. International football doesn’t offer that luxury.

Camps are short. Windows are spread out. A teenager who looks raw in September can look like a star by March.

Pochettino knows that the version of a player he sees in one camp might be unrecognizable by the next. That uncertainty is baked into every roster decision he makes over the coming weeks, including the next set of call-ups that will drop soon.

Those lists won’t just shape a friendly or a single tournament. They will set the tone for the entire 2030 cycle.

Young players like Sullivan and Gozo are banging on the door. Veterans still believe they have more to give. Somewhere between them lies the squad that will carry U.S. hopes into the next decade.

“We need to create a group of players that are really being professional and competing in the way that we expect,” Pochettino said. “They all need to compete with the talented players and young players that we have ahead.”

The race is on. The question now is who grows fast enough — and who Pochettino trusts first — to turn promise into a place on the plane.