I’ll be spending a large part of this summer supporting the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism. As a Marketing Intern, I’ll be working to promote and organize the growing STARS of the Spectrum Golf League. In addition though, I recently had the opportunity to support the growth of another amazing sport.

On Saturday, May 25, thanks to Ithaca College Sports Media alum Dylan Potemri, I had the incredible opportunity to be the color commentator to Dylan’s play-by-play for the first ever full length amputee soccer match at a professional United States stadium.

Amputee soccer is a rapidly growing game, and its unique nature instantly intrigued me. All field players play on crutches with one leg, and all goalies play with one arm. It’s opened the door for many who have lost a limb to stay involved in soccer and/or sports in general.

The sport just had its first ever 4-team U.S. Cup in the fall, and now, on May 25, a full length game made its way into Gillette Stadium. The game was between New England Revolution Amputee Soccer and Metro NY Amputee Soccer, directly following a game between the New England Revolution and NYCFC MLS squads.

I arrived at Gillette Stadium a couple hours before the Revs game and had the chance to meet many of the amputee soccer players and get acclimated with the broadcast crew. A little while later, we received press passes and were brought to a suite to sit in for the MLS game.

At about the 75th minute, we headed down towards the concourse above the side of the field where the amputee soccer game would be played to set up our broadcast. It took time to get everything working as planned, since this was the first production of its kind for the sport. Nonetheless, we were thankfully able to make it on the air soon after the game began, and I’m pretty proud of how things went.

In the game itself, the Revolution won 4-2, thanks in large part to the impressive offensive skillset of Nico Calabria and Musabwa Nzirimwo. Calabria is the all time leading scorer for the U.S. National Amputee Soccer Team, and he showed off his elite talent with 2 goals and an assist. He even went for a flip after his second goal! Musabwa, who scored as many goals as Calabria for New England in the first U.S. Cup, also scored the other 2 goals in this game and showcased intensity on both offense and defense.

Metro NY had their moments, with captain Jovan Booker scoring one goal early and Carlos Ayala scoring one at the last minute. However, New England goalie Corey Laycock and a strong group of defenders including Jack Manning, Kelvin Jimenez, and Vinny Fischer shut down most of Metro’s best opportunities.

The New England Amputee Soccer YouTube channel recently posted these highlights from the game:

I additionally put together a few of my personal favorite calls from the game in the video below:

I would like to thank Dylan Potemri for offering me this amazing opportunity, as well as Ithaca sports media professor Dr. Ellen Staurowsky for passing on the message from Dylan about the event to Ithaca College sports media majors like myself. I am really grateful that I was not only introduced to the game of amputee soccer, but also had the chance to be a part of history for the sport.

I highly recommend watching an amputee soccer match. I would argue that it was more exciting than an MLS soccer match! You can check out the full game at this link.