A potential meeting of Cavan Sullivan and Lionel Messi is too tempting to ignore

PHILADELPHIA — It is, to be sure, just one of many storylines swirling around the Union’s visit to Inter Miami on Saturday (7:30 p.m., Apple TV). And it is not the biggest storyline, or at least it shouldn’t be — not when Inter is chasing the Supporters’ Shield for MLS’s best regular-season record while the Union are scrapping to make the playoffs at all.

But it’s still hard to avoid pondering the possibility that Cavan Sullivan, the Union’s 14-year-old phenom with so much hype around his potential, might play against Lionel Messi, perhaps soccer’s greatest player of all time.

Messi is expected to return this weekend from the ankle injury he suffered in the Copa América final two months ago. Herons manager Gerardo “Tata” Martino told reporters in South Florida on Friday that Messi “is in the plans for the game. ... After training, we will figure out the strategy for him, but he is available.”

Union manager Jim Curtin has thought plenty about a potential Sullivan-Messi meeting, and not just in deciding whether Sullivan will be on the Union’s bench Saturday night. Because the Union’s reserves play at Miami’s reserves on Sunday (7 p.m., Apple TV), it will be easy to have Sullivan with the first team on Saturday whether he plays or not.

The tougher thing to nail is just how much it matters that the most-touted American men’s soccer prospect in years might share a field, even if only for a few minutes, with the sport’s biggest star.

“Messi is the best player our game’s ever had,” Curtin said, “and you have a young talent in Cavan Sullivan coming up that still has a heck of a lot of work to do, for sure. But I think you’ve seen now flashes with the national team, flashes with Union II, glimpses with the first team, training with us every day, and I think getting better.”

‘Part of development’

Whether Sullivan plays, Curtin said, “depends on how the game state is and how the game goes. But to be there to experience all the things that go along with the atmosphere when Messi is on the field, I think that that is part of development too.”

Sullivan will travel in part because the Union made unannounced changes to its roster a few weeks ago. This is one of those things that goes into the weeds of how MLS works, but here’s the simplest way to put it:

When he was first signed, Sullivan’s official status was “off-budget” with a first-team contract. That’s a special salary cap exemption for young academy products, as an incentive to get them to sign with MLS teams (and as an incentive for teams to make offers).

Such players can be on first-team game-day squads four times and play in two games before they must be brought “on budget.” They can play an unlimited number of reserve team games in the MLS Next Pro league. There’s no limit to how many players a team can sign to such contracts, but a player can’t be moved from “on budget” to “off-budget.”

Sullivan has been on six first-team game-day squads so far, but some of them were during the Olympics, when the Union (and other teams) had exemptions because players were away in Paris. So it’s not clear whether Sullivan ever actually hit the limit. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter anymore, and perhaps some day MLS will clean up its rule book to make all of this simpler.

Winning still comes first

For all the hype, Curtin is ensuring that the team’s priorities are in the correct order.

“You have to win first. Winning is priority number one, that is our ultimate goal,” he said. “He [Sullivan] wants to win too. We want to get ourselves in the playoffs, that is priority number one, and it always will be.”

But Curtin added that there should be room within the playoff push for Sullivan to play for the first team, which he has done just once so far.

“Are there going to be learning moments for him along the way where he gets out there to change a game whether we’re winning or losing? Yeah, that’s going to happen down the stretch here,” Curtin said. “But those minutes, again, like I said from the start, are going to be earned.”

Sullivan politely declined an interview request this week. If he plays Saturday, we’ll likely hear from him afterward. His oldest brother, Quinn, shared a few insights, though, on how he has seen Cavan play so far as a pro.

“He holds his own at this level, that’s for sure,” the 20-year-old Quinn said. It’s great to see. ... You see he’s contributing well at the second-team level, and I think he’d be super-excited if he was able to play against Inter Miami.”

Has there been much chatter about it in the Sullivans’ home?

“Not really,” Quinn said. “If it happens, it happens, and if not, we try and approach every game the same, whether it’s a first-team game, second-team game, five minutes, no minutes, whatever it is. So no, there’s not a ton of chatter in the house about it, because it should be any normal game.”

He admitted that the experience would be “obviously a unique experience if Messi’s in the lineup, for him.”

Blake officially out

Union goalkeeper Andre Blake was ruled out of Saturday’s game with a right groin strain that he suffered while playing for Jamaica earlier this week.

It happened late in the Reggae Boyz’ 2-1 win at Honduras in the Concacaf Nations League on Tuesday. Blake played the whole game and made five saves, including a big one in the closing minutes.

Curtin said after Friday’s practice that he hopes Blake will be back for Wednesday’s game at New York City FC (7:30 p.m., Apple TV). Young backup Andrew Rick is likely to start in net instead.

Defensive mifdielder Danley Jean Jacques is also likely to miss the game because of an ankle injury he suffered while playing for Haiti. Leon Flach or Jesús Bueno would start in his place.