We caught up with Quinn and Cavan Sullivan at the recent EA Sports FC 27 launch to discuss how their sibling rivalry has helped fuel each others’ success.
Long before Quinn and Cavan Sullivan were two of the most talked about young players in American soccer, they were brothers in the same house, arguing over who won the last installment of whatever game it was they were playing.
These days, the pair compete alongside each other with the Philadelphia Union, where they have formed one of the most formidable attacking pairs in MLS. That doesn’t mean that the sibling rivalry is through — they still fight for places in the United States men’s national team picture, and it won’t be long until they’re finished sharing a locker room, with Cavan, 16, set to join Manchester City after his 18th birthday.
Few families in American soccer are building a story like this one. The elder Quinn, 22, is already a capped U.S. international and was named to the 2025 Gold Cup roster. This month, Cavan got his first senior USMNT call up alongside Union teammates Neil Pierre and Frankie Westfield.
The timing matters. After co-hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the USMNT is turning to the next cycle and the players who will lead it. Two brothers from the same family, coming out of the same academy, are now big parts of that conversation.
The Sullivans are also proof of the quality of the Union academy, which has produced numerous USMNT senior team players including fellow brothers Brenden and Paxten Aaronson, Mark McKenzie, and Auston Trusty, among many others.
Cavan signed the club’s record homegrown contract, and his future move to Manchester City is one of the biggest statements yet about how far an American academy player can go.
Siblings competing at the top level is nothing new. Serena and Venus Williams pushed each other to the top of tennis. Peyton and Eli Manning each won two Super Bowls. MLS has its own examples too. In addition to the Sullivans and Aaronsons, there’s Cristian and Alex Roldan, who have both played for the Sounders and the U.S. and El Salvador national teams, respectively, and Bradley and Shaun Wright-Phillips both joined the New York Red Bulls after long careers in England.
The Sullivan family stands out even in that company, however. Cavan and Quinn both were called up to the USMNT senior squad before they turned 23, and they’re not even the only brothers in the mix.
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Twins Ronan and Declan are in between Quinn and Cavan at 18 years old, and are coming through the Union academy themselves. In addition, both of them have represented Bangladesh at the youth level through ancestry from their maternal grandmother. With Bangladesh, they were part of a U-20 side that won the 2026 South Asian Football Federation championship.
Together, the four boys are creating their own version of a soccer dynasty, one that was partially forged playing against each other in everything from backyard matches to video games. With four boys and a winner-stays-on rule, somebody was always waiting for a rematch, whether the game was outside or on a controller.
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We caught up with Cavan and Quinn at the recent EA Sports FC 27 launch party in Brooklyn, where they discussed the relationship between their brothers and the role FIFA/FC played in it.
“We would just play with the boys at home, you know, 2v2,” Quinn said. “We would have Cavan, and then the twins, Ronan and Declan. So we would get some good 2v2 games going, switching teams and playing whoever won. All those great memories are super special.”
The battles extended to the virtual world as well, with Cavan having particularly fond memories of a particular game that had one of his now MLS rivals on the cover.
“I really liked FIFA 17, with Marco Reus on the cover,” Cavan said. “I mentioned that before, but my birthday is September 28, so I would always ask for FIFA for my birthday. I remember FIFA 17 being really memorable because the game would come out just a couple of days before my birthday, so it was always the perfect birthday gift.”
Cavan would have been turning 7 when that game came out. Less than eight years later, he was playing in MLS.
The games have changed since then, and so have the stakes.
Quinn, born in 2004, has become an important young piece for the Union. Cavan, born in 2009, made his debut for Philadelphia at 14. That made him the youngest player in MLS history, breaking Freddy Adu’s record, and the youngest debut in major North American team sports. He has kept drawing attention for his technical quality and his composure at his age.
This season, the siblings have formed a brotherly Voltron, tying and setting records along the way. In a 5–0 win over FC Cincinnati on September 9, Quinn had a goal to go along with two assists, while Cavan had three assists of his own. Their six combined goal contributions matched the MLS record for brothers in a single game, set by Gonzalo and Federico Higuaín in 2021. They also became the first brothers in MLS history credited with assists on two different goals in the same match. Furthermore, Cavan’s 12 assists this season are the most ever by a teenager in MLS.
Their careers now play out in public, but the groundwork was laid in private, over years of games at home. That’s hard to copy. A teammate can push you in training and a coach can demand more, but a brother who has known you your whole life, and knows exactly where you came from, pushes you in a different way.
It’s also why this stretch is worth watching. Cavan’s move to England is coming, so the time the brothers get to share a club, a locker room, and a field at Subaru Park is limited.
The setting has moved from the living room to MLS stadiums and national team camps. Now, what’s at stake is starting spots and caps, not bragging rights until the next game.
They’re still brothers, though. If those childhood video game battles are any indication, neither is going to hand the other an easy win.
