CHESTER — Everything, Quinn Sullivan will have you believe, is the same for him this preseason. Even as everything is different from where things stood a year ago at this time.
Sullivan has a new contract, keeping him with the Union through 2027. He has younger brother Cavan Sullivan on the team and a concrete part of the Union’s plans in the present, not just some long off future. Instead of perpetually chasing a spot in the lineup, he’s defending one, having established himself with a breakout 2024 of five goals and 11 assists.
But in his day-to-day approach, the soon-to-be 21-year-old is trying to do what he’s always done.
“I wouldn’t say it changes anything,” Sullivan said at Union training earlier this month. “I grew up with the mindset that someone’s always trying to take your job. I was the person trying to take someone’s job a couple years ago, and now there’s kids trying to take my job. And the new voice with the new coach is a fresh slate, and that’s even more of a reason to know that no job is secure.
“But I would say that mentally, I always approach every preseason and every training the same, where I’m fighting for my job and for a spot in the lineup and for whatever the future holds.”
Whatever may have come of it, Sullivan has tended to impress in preseason, even when injuries and ill luck limited his opportunities on winning teams to a total of 12 starts and less than 1,500 minutes over three seasons from 2021-23. He rocketed past those numbers last year, starting 25 times and logging more than 2,400 minutes in the league. His 16 goal contributions are the most for a Union Homegrown player in an MLS season. In 45 appearances in all competitions, he had 22 goal contributions (seven goals, 15 assists).
That brings confidence, sure. But even more than simply positing complacency as the other side of that coin, Sullivan also understands that it was for losing team, one that missed the MLS Cup playoffs for the first time since 2017, back when Sullivan was a 13-year-old. He doesn’t require someone admonishing him about getting ahead of himself.
“It definitely brings confidence, obviously coming off a good personal year,” he said. “The goal is to make that a good, successful team year. All that’s great and all for a personal accolade, but it doesn’t really mean anything if we don’t win games, make the playoffs and give the fans something to enjoy when they come to Subaru Park, which we didn’t do a ton of last year, and that hurts.”
A coaching change may reinforce that point. Out went Jim Curtin in November, someone who had been at the helm for most of Sullivan’s soccer life and whose roots to the Sullivan family go back decades, Sullivan’s grandfather Larry Sullivan having coached Curtin at Villanova. In comes Bradley Carnell, whose recommitment to counterattacking soccer may not fit quite as well with Sullivan’s technical ability on the ball.
But Sullivan, who turns 21 on March 27, has proven adaptable in the past. His versatility in midfield fits him for a few different roles as Carnell searches for a formation that works, and he’s hardly as misaligned with the system as Jack McGlynn, a more ball-dependent and less defensively reliable midfielder who was dealt to Houston this month.
Sullivan is one of 12 Union Homegrowns on the roster, as the front office doubles down on that part of the sporting strategy. Of them, only Nathan Harriel has played more minutes. Eight, including Cavan, have played fewer than 20 league minutes.
So Sullivan is left to play big brother to … well a lot of people, in addition to his real younger brother.
“It’s pretty crazy being one of the older Homegrowns and one of the longer-tenured players on the team at this point, which has been pretty crazy,” Sullivan said. “I think leadership is something that I’ve been trying to add and hoping to showcase that every training with the guys, and there’s moments to get on them for certain things and moments to wrap them up and give them a hug and say, ‘listen like this is what I meant when I yelled at you on the field.’
“So showing them what the first-team environment is and what a first-team preseason is, is important and the intensity aspect of it, and then also showing them we’re still a family at the end of it, even if I yelled at you on the field for something that you might not even have known.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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