While other boys his age are preparing to go to college, Angelo Viteritti is going to Italy to play top-level soccer. The John Glenn High School senior is the boys soccer team’s goalkeeper and is preparing to go pro more than 4,000 miles away from home. The 18-year-old keeper from East Northport, N.Y. is leaving for Verona, Italy this summer where he will join AC Chievo Verona’s roster as its first American goalkeeper. Verona plays in Serie A, the top division in Italian soccer.

“It’s quite amazing. It’s like living a dream,” his father Louis Viteritti said. “I’m just very happy for Angelo. This is what he’s wanted to do all his life and he actually might have a chance to do it.”

Viteritti will start on the Primavera squad, a team of 18-21-year-olds, a rung below the Serie A squad. Once coaches determine Viteritti is ready, they would elevate him to the Serie A team, where he would play against some of the top names in soccer from AC Milan, Juventus and Roma in front of tens of thousands of passionate soccer fans.

Playing soccer since was about four-years-old, Viteritti discovered a knack for the sport, his family said. Early on, he had a desire to play in the pros.

“That’s everybody’s dream. When you’re younger, you want to be a professional athlete,” he said, noting he idolized the Italian international goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon of Juventus, who will play in the upcoming World Cup.

Viteritti continued to improve his play and has been playing for the Long Island Junior Soccer League’s Commack Premier team since as a Boys-Under-10 player.

“Angelo is a great kid from a great family. One of the nicest kids in the world,” Commack Premier coach Chris Galluzzo said. “He’s our only regular keeper. I’d say that he’s the number one goalkeeper in the Northeast.”

Viteritti won tournament MVP honors in leading Commack Premier to the 2007 Tampa Sun Bowl title. In the past year, he picked up All-County, All-State and All-Region honors, was chosen to play in the Coppa Carnevale Tournament in Viareggio, Italy for two weeks and scored a soccer scholarship to Towson University.

His life’s trajectory, though, changed in Viareggio. While Viteritti was playing for the New York Stars, talent scouts spotted him and asked him to come back for further evaluation. Formal news of Chievo Verona’s interest came just before spring break.

“The day of the last tryout…once I was finished, a couple of hours later, the President of the club called my father and said that they were very interested in me,” he said.

In preparation for his big move, Viteritti has been training every day, working with a goalkeeper coach and studying Italian. He can understand it – his family spoke Italian around him through his childhood – but wants to improve on speaking it. Facilitating the move abroad is the fact that he holds an Italian passport. With those preparations under way and his senior year winding down, Viteritti's parents said the looming change is starting to sink in.

“We’re running out of time… summer’s almost here,” his mother, Maria, said. “I wish him all the best… I hope that everything goes well for him. It’ll be a little sad letting him go that far away, but it’s an opportunity he can’t pass by