The Revolution Amputee Soccer Team won the national championship last month. They play at Gillette Stadium on Saturday.

Last month, the New England Revolution Amputee Soccer Team went to New York and won the U.S. Amputee Soccer Cup for the second time. This Saturday, they come home to Gillette Stadium.

The match follows the first team’s home game against Orlando City SC on September 19, with first-team kickoff at 7:30 PM ET in Foxborough. The amputee team takes the pitch immediately after. Tickets purchased through the link in the Revolution’s coverage send $5 to New England Amputee Soccer.

If you’ve never watched amputee soccer, the format uses forearm crutches for outfield players, who do not wear lower-limb prostheses during play. The game moves faster than most people expect. Hudson Hammer, who has been training with the team for less than a year, put it this way: “If you were to take any of those pros and put them on crutches and have them pop around, they’re going to think this is absolutely exhausting.”

That is not a concession to the sport’s limitations. It is a description of the actual fitness demands.

Who these players are

The New England team is not fielded for the photo opportunity. They won the national championship in August, their second straight title. Several players on the current roster are preparing to represent their countries at the Amputee Soccer World Cup in November.

Their opponent on Saturday, the American Amputee Soccer Association All-Stars, draws from around the country. “They know that, so they are going to be coming for blood,” said Vinny Fischer. “It’s going to be very high energy.”

Last April at a similar Gillette fixture, New England beat Metro NY 5-0.

The cross-program model

Will Sands, a defender on the Revolution first team and the club’s amputee soccer ambassador, trains with both groups. The amputee players attended a first-team training session earlier this week; Sands was at their session the same evening. The arrangement is part of how the organization thinks about the two programs: connected rather than parallel.

“Being involved with this team feels like I am part of something bigger than myself,” Sands said. “Sometimes you can get wrapped up in your own problems, but then you see everyone playing the game they love because they love it and that’s beautiful.”

What the sport provides for people new to limb loss

Hammer framed it plainly: “This was the first thing I got to do as an amputee with other fellow amputees, and to me that is huge. It was the first brotherhood for me to get to be with other people that are living a similar story.”

That is worth sitting with. Finding others who understand your body’s new situation is not a given after amputation. Clinics, support groups, and online communities all do some of that work, but organized sport at a competitive level does something specific: it puts you on a team with people who face the same physical problems you do, and it gives you a reason to show up regularly. For someone less than a year out from amputation, that regularity matters.

The match is Saturday, September 19, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. For ticket links, see the Revolution’s coverage above.