Twenty-seven players will put on a USA uniform for the U.S. men’s national team at this weekend’s Fall Classic.

For some of them, it will be the first time ever wearing the uniform. For some of them, it will bring back memories of a heart-stopping gold medal victory in Israel.

But for Steven DeNapoli, it will mean just a little bit more.

On June 9, 2018 — roughly a month from the start of the 2018 World Lacrosse championship —DeNapoli, who earlier in the year had been named as one of the final 23 players to represent the U.S. in the world championship, was playing for the New York Lizards in a Major League Lacrosse game. On a faceoff in the second quarter, he felt his knee buckle and heard it pop.

“I knew right away,” DeNapoli told US Lacrosse Magazine’s Matt DaSilva last year. “And that was it.”

As some of his best friends lived out their dreams in Israel, DeNapoli was back home on Long Island, recovering from knee surgery.

A few weeks ago, DeNapoli received a call from U.S. assistant coach Seth Tierney, who was also his college coach at Hofstra. Tierney invited DeNapoli to play with the U.S. team at Fall Classic, which begins Friday night against Canada. (8 p.m. on Lax Sports Network/Eleven Sports).

“I was a little shocked,” said DeNapoli, who got cleared to play for the Premier Lacrosse League’s Atlas late this summer. “I didn’t know what their thoughts were. I thought they might want to have some of the younger guys get their feet wet against international competition. But I talked with Coach Tierney and he told me that they wanted some of the guys from last year to be that veteran presence.”

It wasn’t the first time Tierney gave DeNapoli a chance to prove himself.

A native Long Islander, the 5-foot-9, 165-pound midfielder wasn’t pinging on the radar of many of the top programs in the sport coming out of Hewlett High School in 2007.

“He was a really good athlete and an average lacrosse player that wasn’t getting a lot of attention at the Division I level,” Tierney said. “We took a chance.”

Tierney saw enough potential that he offered DeNapoli the chance to play at Hofstra, but there was no scholarship money available. Tierney can still recall the tears from DeNapoli’s mother hitting the glass surface of his desk when she didn’t think they could pull it off financially.

“They made it work, and he took it so personally that by the time he was done here, he was a scholarship-type guy,” Tierney said. “He lacks with what you see in the mirror in terms of size, but inside he’s just an animal and a fierce competitor.”

DeNapoli ended up being a two-year captain at Hofstra, helping the Pride reach the NCAA tournament as a senior in 2011.

Kevin Unterstein was an assistant coach on that 2011 team. They were teammates for a year at Hofstra when DeNapoli used to sleep on his couch, and they later played together with the Lizards. They were set to be two of the key cogs as defensive midfielders for the 2018 U.S. team. He knows DeNapoli as well as anyone in the sport.

“There’s never a moment when DeNap isn’t playing with an edge,” said Unterstein, now an assistant coach at North Carolina. “He has played at the highest level in our sport and always plays with something to prove. That is what always separated him from everyone else on the field. As a teammate, he’s a ‘foxhole guy.’ Whether you’re right or wrong, he’s always there for you.”

And that’s part of the reason Unterstein tried to be there for DeNapoli during an incredibly difficult time.

Unterstein was on the field with DeNapoli the night he was injured, just a couple of weeks from the start of the U.S. training camp leading up to the world championship.

“It completely changed the atmosphere, not only in the game, but in the entire stadium,” Unterstein said. “He worked toward that moment his entire life and to see it taken away from him like that was utterly heart-wrenching. I felt completely helpless in that situation, knowing what had happened, just wishing we could turn back the clock.”

It shook Unterstein to the point that he didn’t dress for another game until he was in a U.S. uniform.

“It was a tough time,” DeNapoli said. “I had my surgery a day or two before the games began and I was watching it in my bed. It was tough to watch at times. There were times when I was feeling sorry for myself and asking, ‘Why me?’ I’d find myself thinking I should be out there.

“I had to convince myself that these are injuries and it’s a part of the game. Feeling down or even depressed was not going to help the situation.”

Unterstein was one of the people who reached out to DeNapoli from Israel.

“I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was going through, and I just wanted him to know that we all were thinking about him,” Unterstein said. “To us, he was as big of a part of the world championship as everyone participating in the game.”

“I’d text [Unterstein] good luck and he’d text back, ‘We all miss you here,’ and that helped keep my sanity,” DeNapoli said.

But texts aren’t a substitute for the real thing.

“The hardest part was the bittersweet feeling of watching them win the gold,” DeNapoli said. “Yes, I was a part of that team, but I wasn’t physically there.”

In February, DeNapoli got a surprise call from Tierney, inviting him to come down and talk to the Hofstra team after a practice session.

He shared his story with the Hofstra players, but then became the story. Hofstra captains Mark Ellis and Ryan Tierney presented DeNapoli with a gold medal and world championship ring in the locker room.

It was a special moment for Tierney due to his respect for DeNapoli. Tierney got emotional at that presentation and he got emotional in January 2018 when DeNapoli made the final U.S. roster.

As the team’s offensive coordinator, Tierney wasn’t involved with the selection of the defensive players on the team, but he beamed with pride when the roster was announced at the conclusion of a training camp at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.

“I looked at him when he saw his name of the list of guys that made the travel roster and it all came back to me,” Tierney said. “I saw his mother’s tears splashing on the desk again.”

The dream ultimately didn’t come to fruition in 2018 the way DeNapoli hoped, but maybe it will in 2022 when Canada hosts the next world championship?

“We talked as a staff and said, ‘Let’s see who wants to do this again’,” Tierney said. “There’s no guarantee for 2022, but out of loyalty and respect, we felt they deserved a phone call.”

DeNapoli didn’t take long to consider the invitation.

“Anytime you get the opportunity to wear USA across your chest, you’d be stupid not to take that opportunity,” DeNapoli said. “I absolutely said yes, and I’m happy to do whatever they need in any capacity.”

Another opportunity. That’s all DeNapoli has ever wanted, or needed, in his lacrosse career.