Davi Brings Relentless Attitude to Milwaukee Torrent, NPSL

November 25, 2018

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By Jeff Helfrich/NPSL.com

Andreas Davi isn’t going to stop until he builds a soccer empire in Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee Torrent owner and head coach has been involved with soccer since he was three years old. He spent the better part of the next 40 years in Germany with Bayer Leverkusen, playing and holding other roles with the team. He’s now dedicated his knowledge to building soccer in Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin. And he’s doing it his way.

“Basically, it’s all I can do,” Davi, who holds different roles in various clubs, said. “Obviously, it turned out that I really have a talent for running a club like this or to do this. I think it’s just the German I am that I’m so determined.”

Much of the responsibilities and financial burdens of the Torrent currently fall on Davi. He’s enjoyed the work. In 2015, the club announced its inception. In 2016, Milwaukee started league play. The next year the club became a full member of the NPSL. In 2018, Davi and the Torrent added a women’s team. And this month, the Torrent were one of the 11 clubs announced as members of the 2019 NPSL Founder’s Cup.

“The goals for this, obviously you want to win,” Davi said. “I want to bring a much better product on the field to Milwaukee that everybody gets to see how our hard work paid off. I’m so excited about the longer season. That was always my main goal.”

Davi plans to bring in a business manager and a financial officer. The club just hired a marketing company. Until lately, he’s been handling most of those responsibilities. He’d like to focus more on coaching. The Torrent are a far cry from a typical sports team. Meticulous hard work has brought the team to where it is.

The lack of deep pockets didn’t dissuade Davi from establishing a women’s club. He wants the organization to serve as an example for kids in the state and area. He wants to give children with soccer dreams something to aspire to, to see up close in person.

“When I started the Torrent, I always said that the Torrent is for the boys and the girls,” Davi said. “You have thousands of kids playing in the southeast of Wisconsin and it’s almost half girls who are playing on a competitive level.”

His connections with Bayer Leverkusen have also aided the area youth and the growth of the club. The Bundesliga club embraces the player it grew and vice versa. Davi travels abroad once a year and takes kids from the state to experience the highest level of soccer in Germany. They practice at the facility with Bayer Leverkusen’s coaches and players and go and see games.

During the summer, six academy coaches from the German club travel to Milwaukee and run a camp with Davi. He tries to run his club similarly to the way his former club does. They exchange ideas. And the Milwaukee Torrent isn’t just known in the United States anymore.

“In October I just got contacted by another Bundesliga club who would like to have a partnership with us,” Davi said. “That’s all profit of our work that we’ve done and our reputation, even overseas, for the Milwaukee Torrent.”

As Davi pushes forward towards the 2019 NPSL Founders Cup and other games and endeavors for his organization, he doesn’t have much time to look back at what he’s done. The circumstances have to be very specific for him to get nostalgic.

“It’s when I go somewhere, or when fans post something and I see someone with a Torrent hat or shirt or something. This is the moment where I say, ‘that’s pretty cool.’”