MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee Bavarians have joined the Women’s Premier Soccer League as an expansion club ahead of the upcoming 2020 season, the league announced Wednesday.

Tom Zaiss, Adult Director of the Bavarian Soccer Club, will be the WPSL team’s general manager. Zaiss, who played for the Bavarians as a youth player and coached their men’s national championship teams in the early 2000s, is the coaching director for the Bavarians high school aged players and holds a USSF A License. The club will announce additional members of the technical staff in the coming days.

The Bavarians will play home matches at Heartland Value Fund Stadium in Milwaukee. The Bavarian Soccer Club campus includes several fields as well as the Bavarian Bierhaus restaurant.

“We are very excited to join the Women’s Premier Soccer League,” Bavarian club president Peggy Boris said. “The addition of a WPSL team to our youth development model means Bavarian Soccer Club now has a complete player development pathway.

“This addition allows us to provide our female membership and Wisconsin-based soccer players with the best programs and competition from around the U.S. and a pathway to the professional ranks."

Founded in 1929, the Bavarian Soccer Club is one of the country’s oldest soccer clubs. It serves boys and girls with development programs for players ages five all the way through adult competitive soccer.

The club becomes the second Milwaukee metro club in the league joining the Milwaukee Torrent. It also has another Wisconsin rival with the Green Bay Glory.

The Bavarians’ adult teams have won eight national championships in UPSL, amateur and open cup play, a record for Wisconsin-based clubs. The Bavarian Soccer Club has produced hundreds of players and coaches who have gone on to play and teach the game in community-based programs throughout the NCAA Division I, II, III, NAIA, Major League Soccer, international leagues, and US National Teams.



For more information about the Bavarians WPSL team, visit www.bavariansoccerclub.com, as well as its Twitter and Facebook pages. For information about the WPSL, visit wpslsoccer.com.

The WPSL is in its 23rd season and is the largest women’s soccer league in the world with more than 130 clubs from coast-to-coast. WPSL rosters feature elite collegiate, post-collegiate, international and standout prep student-athletes. Many of the United States’ most accomplished women’s players have played in the WPSL, including household names such as Alex Morgan, Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Julie Foudy and Brandi Chastain.

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