The far-flung midweek substitute appearance that could have huge ramifications for Man City

There’s feeling old, and then there’s waking up to a cavalcade of stories about an MLS debutant who was born on a day that ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by The Black Eyed Peas was number one on the Billboard Hot 100. (’Break Your Heart’ by Taio Cruz was top of the charts in the UK, for what it’s worth. Holds up well.) Of course, as I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, ‘I Gotta Feeling’ spent 14 consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100, making it the longest-running number-one single of 2009, so for the sake of clarity, I’m talking about September 28th of that year. And I’m also talking about Cavan Sullivan.

If you were to see the Philadelphia Union midfielder - with his crop of platinum blonde hair and his meticulously executed eyebrow slit - without any prior knowledge of his precocious footballing ability, you would be forgiven for assuming that he is perhaps one of those TikTok influencers who dance like broken Chuck E. Cheese animatronics to sped up clips of Charli XCX songs in their ring-lit bedrooms, occasionally winking into the camera in a manner that feels like a violation of your human rights.

But then you witness him play - gliding around the centre of the park with a cool ease, spotting passes that only exist in a dimension invisible to the eye of most mortal beings, loosing through balls with his beauty filter of a left foot - and suddenly it all makes perfect sense. Not since the hysterical days of Freddy Adu (who made his MLS debut four years before Sullivan was even conceived, by the way, you increasingly arthritic sack of dust) have the USA had a prodigy quite as prodigious.

Indeed, it was Adu’s age record that Sullivan broke by a fortnight on Wednesday when he made his professional bow for his hometown franchise, coming on as a substitute in a 5-1 victory over New England Revolution. His brother, Quinn, also made an appearance from the bench in that contest - scoring too, for that matter - but at the ripe old age of 20, the elder sibling is, let’s face it, a has-been.

While the football gene may run in the Sullivan blood, however, it could quite easily have skipped the family entirely. Were it not the unfortunate incident that blew three of his grandfather’s fingers off during the Vietnam War, cruelly ending any hopes of a baseball career in the process, the Sullivan clan might never have thrown themselves into the relatively niche pursuit of soccer at all, and Cavan might never have gone on to become the youngest debutant in the history of major American sports.

Fate can be strange like that, and now the teenage Sullivan has not only etched his moniker into the record books, but is standing on the cusp of a truly astonishing future. His contract in Philadelphia includes a clause that outlines a transfer to Manchester City once he turns 18, and depending on how he develops over the next year or two, he may even join one of the Premier League champions’ associated continental outfits - Girona, Lommel, Palermo, or Troyes - much sooner.

Regardless, his immediate trajectory will follow a familiar pathway. First will come the initial hype, the spike in Google searches and throwaway articles like this one to determine who this freakish child is and what exactly we can expect of him. Then, there will be the lull, the hard yards during which the novelty will loosen and shed away like falling milk teeth, and where Sullivan’s reputation will burnish or sober accordingly - forecasts will be tempered, growing pains, more than likely.

But through it all, as the rest of us forget and succumb to the distraction of the next sickeningly boyish sensation, City, like an Eye of Sauron suspended above the Etihad, will be watching keenly. Every aspect of Sullivan’s performance will be monitored, every setback analysed in unappeasable slow motion by bespectacled turbo nerds chained to interactive whiteboards. The masses may drift and dawdle, but for City and Sullivan, the real work is yet to come. And that process - in all of its painstaking, extensive glory - began when an LED board was held aloft by a nameless fourth official in a Pennsylvanian suburb on Wednesday night.