Tormenta

In February 2026, Tormenta FC told its staff to keep their jobs but told its players there would be no team to report to. The club announced a hiatus from USL League One for the season, the front office staying in place.

Darin and Netra Van Tassell and Jeff Spencer founded the club in Statesboro in 2015, giving the city its first professional side in 60 years. They named it for the Spanish word for storm, a nod to the Storm Soccer Academy in Savannah that was folded into the new club's youth setup, and the navy, sky blue, silver and magenta on the crest were chosen to read as storm and ocean and the town's appetite for the game at once. The academy connection outlasted the founding generation: an ibis on the badge gave the team its nickname.

The clearest case is Nick Akoto, whose 2024 move to Burton Albion in England's League One set a record fee and became the first paid international transfer in USL League One's history. Niall Reid-Stephen broke that mark again moving to New Mexico United in the 2025 offseason.

Tormenta played its first six seasons on borrowed ground at Georgia Southern's Eagle Field before opening its own stadium in October 2022, a 3,500-seat ground built with room to grow to 5,300. That year was the club's best: Tormenta beat Chattanooga Red Wolves 2–1 to win the USL League One title, and the affiliated women's side won the first USL W League championship in the same year.