Wisconsin Soccer Central

Andreas Davi has brought youth coaches from German club Bayer Leverkusen to Wisconsin for a week-long summer camp each of the past three years.

Now Davi, who grew up in Leverkusen playing for Bayer's youth teams, is expanding the relationship with his boyhood club through his new German Fit Soccer School.

The program will be run in cooperation with Bayer Leverkusen, and youth coaches from the Bundesliga club will come to Milwaukee every two to three months to conduct week-long mini-camps with Davi.

Since leaving Bavarian SC last spring, Davi started German Fit, a gym and personal fitness business in Glendale, and currently is doing 1-on-1 soccer training with 26 players. Starting Jan. 1, those players will be part of the German Fit Soccer School, which will run year-round and include tactical classroom sessions.

"I would like that every kid in Wisconsin gets the opportunity to do this without all the 'This is another club, I might get in trouble' stuff  – I don't want any of that. Leave the politics out of it," said Davi, who isn't connected to any club.

The mini-camps with the Bayer Leverkusen youth coaches will be 2 hours per night Monday through Friday. Davi said the sessions likely would focus on a specific topic, such as finishing, head balls, defenders and playing on the wings.

"They are excited, I am excited," Davi said of the Bayer Leverkusen coaches. "We'll have to see which coaches we can get, because it will be during the season."

• Madison's Takumi Ikeda, an 11-year-old who plays for SC Waukesha, will head to Germany to train with Bayer Leverkusen for 10 days in April after impressing some of the club's youth coaches at last summer's International German Fit Camp. "All the coaches who saw him talked really highly about him," Davi said. "Probably his biggest disadvantage is the physical game right now. He's not scared, but kids in Germany are way more physical than we are here."
• Davi said he's still interested in taking a Under-13 boys team from Wisconsin with him to Germany in April, a trip that would include training sessions with Bayer Leverkusen youth coaches and several matches. More information about the trip
• This year's International German Fit camp, which will include six Bayer Leverkusen coaches, is scheduled for June 29 to July 3 at Schwabenhof in Menomonee Falls. Registration information