The legendary Manchester United soccer team from England has been touring the United States and this week a boys’ soccer team from the United States – featuring 13-year-old goalkeeper Adam Margulies of Sandy Hook – is returning the favor.

The 16-member team, selected after a series of rigorous tryouts that lasted throughout the spring, features players from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia. John Fisher of Youth Professional Training Programs (YPT) in Downington, Pennsylvania coaches the squad.

The team left Philadelphia on Tuesday, August 5, to fly to Manchester, where they will stay for a week and play four games against youth academy teams sponsored by English premier, first- and second-division clubs.

The big game – on Saturday – will be against Manchester United’s own youth academy team at the new Carrington training facility.

In between matches, the U.S. team will work out with Manchester United’s trainers and visit local tourist attractions.

On August 12, the group will travel to London where it will play two more matches before returning to the United States on August 15.

Coach Fisher, 36, is no stranger to international soccer tours. In past summers, he has taken American youth squads to the Netherlands and other European locales. During the remainder of the year, he maintains a punishing schedule as a college, high school, Olympic Development Program and club coach.

Adam, 13, has been playing soccer since the age of 6. He spent three years in goal for Brookfield’s premier and travel teams and now plays goal for Oakwood, a premier team based in Glastonbury. He also is a goalkeeper in the Connecticut ODP, which selected and trains young players who show exceptional promise.

Adam will be an eighth grader at Newtown Middle School this fall.

Coach Fisher is optimistic about the team’s chances – even against the Manchester United prodigies.

“English soccer is more physical than ours,” he said, “and part of what I have to do is teach the players how to deal with that. But this is an exceptionally talented and motivated group of kids and they are catching on quickly. Even though most of them didn’t know each other before they tried out for the team, they seem to sense instinctively where to find one another on the field. If they continue to develop, they will give a very good account of themselves against any opponent.”

The commitment the Margulies family has already put into this is astonishing. Once or twice a week since April, they have had to make the four-hour trip to the Downingtown practice fields and just last week had to make the 265-mile trip to participate in a camp at Lock Haven University in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

Now that commitment is going to pay off.