It’s that time of the year again, when I attempt to convince you to vote for one of five nominated clubs for Protagonist Soccer’s Club of the Year. We’ve done this four times before. In 2018, Inocentes FC from Ft. Worth, Texas won with an amazing story of immigrants finding success on the fields of the UPSL. In 2019, Pensacola FC won the WPSL title and the Club of the Year award. In 2020, one of the strangest of years due to the spiking pandemic, the Maryland Bobcats, fresh off a UPSL title and an announced move to becoming a professional club, took home the hardware. Last year, KC Courage were chosen as the Club of the Year for their heroic approach to supporting their players during the pandemic.

As always, our award is chosen by our readers. Our goal, as a staff, is to work together to narrow the field to 4-5 clubs in the lower league ranks, both men’s and women’s, and offer our choices to the readers of our site. It has yielded interesting results, honestly. Clubs seen as favorites have been passed over and dark horses have certainly surged across the finish line to take the silver. This year offered the first, in three years of pandemic, full seasons for all clubs nominated. In the end, it will be up to the readers to decide. Here’s to an amazing season of lower league stories. And here’s to our first nomination, Tormenta FC.

Tormenta FC is the product of the Premier Development League (PDL). Named after the gulf weather (the word “tormenta” means “storm” in Spanish), Tormenta was founded in 2015 in Statesboro, Georgia, just an hour and a half from the Atlantic Coast. The club would play in the PDL with little real success for three years. The final year of the PDL, the club won the Deep South Division before exiting the playoffs in the conference semifinals. The following year, Tormenta would exit the rebranded PDL, now USL League 2, to become the first announced club in USL League 1.

The club would struggle for the first three years in USL League 1, hitting their worst finish in 2021, with a record of 8 wins, 14 losses, and 6 draws, second to last in the standings. While the men’s team struggled in 2021, the club announced it would be launching a women’s team in the USL W, which would begin play in 2022. It was a bold move for the club, but it would pay off. While things may not have looked bright at that moment for either team, 2022 would be a year of spectacular excellence for both.

The men’s team may not have been perfect in 2022, but under the continued leadership of Ian Cameron the club was good enough and would climb the table to finish in the third spot in the regular season. The men finished with 45 points, the second in a tight pack of 7 clubs within 6 points (Richmond finished with 51 points, atop the regular season standings). In the playoffs, the club ground out wins, knocking off Charlotte, Greenville, and Chattanooga, each by one goal, to win the USL League 1 crown.

Tormenta celebrates a USL League 1 Championship.

Aside from the men’s Championship, the team would also find success in the US Open Cup. Entering in the second round of play, Tormenta beat USL Championship sides Charleston Battery and Birmingham Legion before losing in the fourth round to an MLS team. Only one USL League 1 club would advance further in the competition, Union Omaha.

The women’s team came into its first season in USL W playing with house money. There was no pecking order in the new league, flush with 44 women’s clubs with varying years of experience, history was ready to be written and Tormenta came to play. Playing in the South Central Division, Tormenta battled Chattanooga to the end, winning the division by a single point. The club was led in scoring by Amy Andrews, who would continue her impressive form in the playoffs.

Against FC Miami City, Andrews would score the winning goal that put Tormenta through to the semifinals. In its next match against Greenville Liberty SC, Andrews would score 2 more goals in a 4-1 rout. The championship match would be against the undefeated host, Minnesota Aurora FC, and it was Jaida Nyby who would finish the job, scoring a brace, including the wonder-strike winner in extra time. The match was a shining example of how exciting women’s soccer is, including the stellar play of Tormenta goal keeper Sydney Martinez, who chalked up 7 saves against Aurora.

It was a match for the ages. From both a USL W and Tormenta FC perspective you couldn’t have asked for a better finish to an inaugural season. Tormenta Head Coach Jim Robbins would finish the season with a 15-1-4 record and a league title. Amy Andrews won USL W Player of the Year, Golden Boot, and All-League First Team. Sydney Martinez earned Golden Glove and All-League First Team.

Amy Andrews celebrates a season to remember.

Tormenta FC is the first club, in the history of this award, to be nominated because of the play on both its men’s and women’s sides. There is something to be said for that. Too often, we lament the lack of focus on the women’s teams when clubs launch them. Some clubs, unfortunately, do not see the value in the women’s game and instead treat them as afterthoughts. Tormenta absolutely crushed it in 2022. Both teams were the best in their leagues, taking home their respective titles. The club is the perfect balance, equal champions of 2022. If that’s not reason enough to vote for Tormenta FC for Protagonist Soccer’s 2022 Club of the Year, I don’t know what could convince you.

- Dan Vaughn