Joe Scally is seeing stars — and stripes.
Long Island’s most talented soccer player is tugging on a Team USA jersey for the second World Cup in a row, after the 23-year-old anxiously awaited the good news while surrounded by family in their Lake Grove home last weekend.
“It was a very, very stressful, long day, but once [the call] came, we were ecstatic,” Scally told The Post after taking the stage at the USA roster reveal in Lower Manhattan on Monday.
A few nerves are nothing to the Borussia Mönchengladbach star defender, who recently became the youngest non-German to play 150 Bundesliga matches — and he’s got home to thank for that.
“Everyone from Long Island is good with pressure,” said Scally, the youngest member of America’s 2022 World Cup team at 19.
“I’m happy to be from there. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Pride in his 631 upbringing is an understatement. Scally’s family has generations of soccer DNA that’s brought him to such a fabulous upcoming moment on home turf.
His grandfather Nick ran a local soccer shop for decades, and Scally’s mom, Margaret, was a standout player in an Olympic development program years ago.
“She was feisty, she was technical, very smart,” said John Fitzgerald, her former coach, who now coaches American Soccer Club, a team Joe gave a perseverance speech to last year.
Although an ACL injury ended Margaret’s playing days as a teen, her lasting impact came as a mom on the bench, helping her little boy fall in love with the game.
“I don’t want to use the word mama’s boy, but he basically wanted me to be his coach,” she said.
“It meant the world to me, but I still make fun of him for it,” Margaret added with a smile.
The play she instilled in Scally was no laughing matter.
“He was just more mature in his understanding of the game,” said Frank Schmidt, his trainer with the Sachem Destroyers when the future phenom was 11 and 12.
Scally would do things even varsity players weren’t cerebral enough for — all while playing above his age group.
“To do that at age 11, I hadn’t seen that,” said Schmidt, who added that Joe would go out of his way to work with kids less skilled.
Even his older brother Drew knew Joe was destined to be larger than life when they were kids.
“I would say when he was about 12, 13 years old, I had a feeling that he could be special,” Drew, now 26, said of his “best friend.”
Scally proved Drew right soon after, joining NYCFC’s youth academy at age 14, where teenagers would mix with the pro team and try to hold their own.
“It’s one thing to play as a ninth grader and go up against a 12th grader,” Schmidt said. “This was, you’re 14, and you’re going up against a 30-year-old who played at the World Cup.”
He rose to the occasion time and again. Scally signed a pro contract with NYCFC at age 15 and graduated from Sachem North High School months early to play in Germany at 18.
Sure, Scally’s maturity and independence impressed his tight-knit family — mom, dad, Drew and younger sister Anna — but he has a much lighter side that keeps winning people over.
The sense of humor No. 19 has is so infectious in the USA locker room that team photographers want him mic’d up, Margaret said.
“Anytime everyone’s laughing about something, it’s the teammates saying, ‘Oh, Joe said something.’ ”
Schmidt corroborated that Joe’s jokes go back to his early days, with Drew adding, “It’s the humor where you don’t really try to be funny.”
“One time I made a terrible pass to him, and he just shook his head.”
sister Anna, dad John and mom Margaret. Scally family photo
“Growing up, we would really make fun of each other,” Drew said.
When it comes to getting in the zone and serious, there’s only one voice that readies Scally for the big moments.
Justin Bieber.
“He’s definitely one of his favorites,” Drew said, dishing that Joe is partial to classics like “Stay” and “Love Yourself.”
“He listens to him a lot before games — on the bus, on the plane.”
The Scally clan may get their kicks with each other, but the weight of the World Cup — and having Joe home to watch the Knicks, chow down at the Lake Grove Deli, play competitive Uno and cherish the past few days — isn’t lost on any of them.
“It’s a dream come true,” Joe said.
— Additional reporting by Christian Arnold
