Atlas Knights under-15 striker, Ajijic’s Juan Diego Ibarra (right), and Knights coach Ruben Duarte, will face the world’s best in the age group. Duarte says, “We will play our best and hardest to become world champions.”

The Atlas Knights flew Wednesday to England as returning national champions, having represented Mexico in international play at the Manchester tourney in 2004 and 2007.  The Knights won this year’s Mexican championship in a close-fought game with Monterrey 1-0.

Juan Diego Ibarra has been training and playing with the  Atlas youth team for more than a year.  But from the time he was a toddler, he gravitated to futbol. It is a family heritage. His father, Jose Juan (“Pipa”) Ibarra, a Lakeside building contractor, for years was a swift-footed player for a number of local teams, competing against regional clubs. “Like all my childhood friends,” he says, “I grew up playing in the street, in vacant lots, at local campos de futbol, in bull rings, anywhere, and later with any team I could.”

The Ibarra family clearly is futbol oriented. Pipa passed along his aficion for futbol to his five children – three girls and two boys. As his family responsibilities grew, he became a skilled albañil (mason), then an independent contractor, remodelling and building homes for local clients, responsibilities that cut into his playing time. But not his enthusiasm for soccer. He continues coaching local children, passing along to them not only his love of the sport but also the lessons his coaches and years of playing experience taught him.  That background plainly informs the playing skills of his son.

The boy, selected by the Knights over a year ago, has been training – when the team is not competing against rivals – six days a week.  The regime is a serious thing. Boys selected to try out for the team are quartered in the Atlas casa club in Guadalajara. The team has a doctor, a physical therapist, and of course trainers and a coach.

Ruben Duarte, veteran former member of the Atlas professional team, became a coach after two leg fractures forced his retirement from the game, Under his direction, Juan Diego and his teammates quickly learn and hone the myriad swift-moving  techniques of top-level futbol, just as top young athletes throughout the United States and Canada rigorously train for American football competition. They too have playbooks, as training concentrates on sets of strategies, tactics, techniques and, of course, a serious regime of physical conditioning. Agility training is central to soccer – those photos you’ve seen of players flying above opponents to carome the ball to a teammate or flick it into the net with their heads.

Juan Diego is a striker, whose chief purpose is to score goals.  They might be described, in American football terms, as a kind of combination of fleet running back and cunning pass receiver.

The Knights’ toughest challenge will come from the Brazilian team, says Duarte. “They knocked us out (of competition) last year.”

If Juan Diego and the Knights reach the final, the memory should last a lifetime.  The final game on August 6 will be played on the hallowed turf of Old Trafford, Manchester United’s magnificent 80,000-seat stadium, prior to the English team’s pre-season friendly encounter with Italian giants Juventus.

Nine of Juan Diego’s teammates are from other states: Aguascalientes, Michoacan, Nuevo Leon (Monterrey), Sinaloa and Zacatecas.