PHILADELPHIA — Union manager Jim Curtin doesn’t get emotional in public very often. Maybe when one of his players scores a big goal, but that’s about it.

On Thursday, though, Curtin was nearly moved to tears over one aspect of Cavan Sullivan’s arrival to the big time.

A quarter-century ago, Cavan’s grandfather Larry was Curtin’s college coach at Villanova. In Curtin’s senior season, Cavan’s father Brendan joined the Wildcats’ coaching staff.

Now Curtin is coaching the 14-year-old who might become the best ever from a family that he called “kind of Philadelphia soccer royalty.”

“There’s an element of debt, excitement, a kind of full-circle moment,” Curtin said at a news conference in Cavan’s honor Thursday at Subaru Park. The precocious attacking midfielder sat next to him on stage, and much of the Sullivan family — Brendan, mother Heike, and fellow sons Quinn, Ronan and Declan — sat in the front row of the seats.

Curtin praised Larry as “a guy that taught me so much about the game, about being a leader a person, and a good soccer player as well,” and called Brendan “the first guy that I saw that was a professional-level player, that I saw day-in and day-out.”

Though MLS’s launch in 1996 was a year before Curtin started at Villanova, American players were still hard to find. The sport certainly wasn’t like what it is now, where there are countless players and fans can watch every big league worldwide.

Sullivan’s signing with the Union is a symbol of that, too. For as much as everyone wanted him to start his pro career at the hometown club, the Union still had to make an offer worth picking over starting at England’s Manchester City, Germany’s Borussia Dortmund, or other big European clubs that wanted him.

New details of the deal

In the end, Sullivan will get the best of both worlds. He’ll play for the Union until he’s 18, then move to Man City for a pre-agreed price of around $5 million.

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