On March 30, 2019, the 16-year-old midfielder Gianluca Busio came on for Sporting Kansas City in a rout of Montreal. He didn’t do a whole lot in his half hour on the pitch—seven of his eight completed passes went backwards—but in the 78th minute he poked the ball away from a center back and slotted home his team’s sixth goal. The next week Busio was rewarded with a full 90 minutes and he scored again. The week after that, another appearance, a third straight goal. Coach Peter Vermes was sticking with the red-hot kid and it was paying off.

Alas, not all breakthroughs go as smoothly as Busio’s. On July 17, a teenage striker named Theo Bair earned his second career start for Vancouver. He made a couple of promising runs where he held off a New England defender and found a shot from a low cross, but neither chance connected. The first hit the far post and ricocheted out. Two minutes later, Bair reached back for a bouncing pass at the top of the six-yard box but couldn’t quite corral it. The shot sailed over the crossbar from embarrassingly close range and Bair tumbled head over heels into the goal, where he slapped the grass in frustration. He was subbed off, and next game he only appeared for the last 14 minutes.