Hartford Athletic face a quick turnaround, as they take the field for the second time in four days in a USL Championship clash against Birmingham Legion. After winning their season opener in Jacksonville by a score of 3-nil. The Latics will be looking to win two in a row to start the season for the first time since 2024, when their second game was also against Birmingham. Hartford won that game 1-0 in absolutely deplorable conditions and will be hoping for fairer weather on Wednesday morning.
Legion had something of a topsy-turvy offseason, with Mark Briggs departing in January after just 257 days in charge, with the former Sacramento Republic manager moving on to take an assistant role in MLS with FC Dallas. Nonetheless, Brendan Burke was complimentary of the roster the Legion have assembled.
“They’ve gotten a lot more athletic, done really good with their roster," he said. "Their ability to cover ground has gotten much much better. It makes them a more dangerous team. They’re one of the teams coming out of the offseason in an entirely different place.”
The offseason turnover for Birmingham was kind of a sea change, with longtime players Matt Van Oekl (173 appearances), Enzo Martinez (148) and Jake Rufe (134) all departing, and significant additions including former New England Revolution midfielder Gevork Diarbian, well-traveled USL veteran forward Romario Willams, and defender Bryce Washington, last of North Carolina FC.
It remains to be seen how well all those new pieces can fit together. Birmingham managed only one clear-cut chance in their rain-soaked opener against Tampa Bay Rowdies, while managing an expected goals mark of just 0.54 on a mere 8 shots.
As for the game itself, it’s not only a midweek game, but an 11 AM kickoff time at Protective Stadium, something that Brendan Burke had strong feelings about:
“It’s really stupid to be playing at 11 AM," he said. "The game’s going to be about who wears down. It’s just really dumb, I don’t know why the league allows it.”
For as much as the USL Championship has dreams of Division One sanctioning or promotion and relegation, basic elements of professionalism, such as scheduling, continue to elude league headquarters, and midweek kickoffs at 11 AM in the second game week of the season do little to instill confidence.
The quick turnaround will also challenge a thin squad. Burke is still likely to be without Emmanuel Samadia, Samuel Careaga, and Michee Ngalina. It’s also not clear if Baboucarr Njie is ready to go, all of which adds up to a roster that probably won’t have 18 professional players at kickoff, something Hartford struggled with in 2025 as well.
For Burke, the conditions make the test as much a psychological one as a physical one:
“I told [the players] this is a mentality check," he said. "It’s hard to get up for a game on Wednesday at 11 with no crowd. The environment isn’t great, it forces you to be hyper focused. You have to bring the energy.”
That psychological test is part of why Burke assembled the squad he did, relying on veterans who have been there before, or have demonstrated the right mentality in difficult stretches of games. Midfielder Andres Hernandez – who showed his ability to help a team grind out results with Alianza – might well be in line for minutes, and Barry Coffey is likely to get another chance to show what he can do after a positive debut on Saturday.
After Wednesday, the Latics will take a week-long break before their U.S. Open Cup match on March 18, and grabbing another result from this long road stretch to start the season is a must. Burke believes that his team is far closer to midseason form than they were at this point in 2025; capitalizing on that on Wednesday against Legion is a must.
