Hartford Athletic head to Keyworth Stadium to take on Detroit City on Friday night in a first-round USL Championship playoff game.
It’s Hartford’s second playoff game in as many seasons, the first time it has ever made the playoffs in consecutive seasons, and the third all time, with the other coming in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Hartford have lost both of the previous playoff games, falling 1-nil to St. Louis in 2020, and then on penalties after the game finished goalless through 120 minutes against Pittsburgh last year.
After a six-game winless streak in all competitions, Hartford turned things around with a 2-1 victory in the fourth El Clamico of the season. After Karifa Yao opened the scoring for the visitors, Sadat Anaku and Emmanuel Samadia scored for Hartford to flip the result, giving the Latics their first win over their local rivals this season. It was an important result for the Latics, who won their regular-season finale for the first time since 2020 and head into the playoffs with a bit of momentum rather than on a seven-game skid.
And that momentum – whether it proves to be a little or a lot – is critical as Hartford head into one of the toughest road environments in the USL Championship. Keyworth is a tight stadium, with the fans close to the pitch, and a poor playing surface - hardly the place to go and find yourself when you’re struggling. And it’s even more difficult in 2026, as Le Rouge have been close to unbeatable on their home turf.
A huge part of that is that Detroit have had a virtually watertight defence this season, conceding much less than a goal per game, and they’ve been ever better at Keyworth. The last goal it conceded at home was Augie Williams’ penalty deep in stoppage time when these two teams last met back on September 5, and haven’t conceded at home from open play since the end of July, when Oalex Anderson found the back of the net for Las Vegas Lights. That gives Le Rouge six clean sheets in their last seven home games, an impressive stretch as they look to better their playoff results from last year and make a deep run.
And while Detroit have one of the best home defenses in the league, Hartford have one of the weakest attacks away from home - no surprise, given how much their attack struggled in general this season. The Latics have just 12 goals away from Trinity Health Stadium in the USL Championship. And of their last five road goals in the league, dating back to the beginning of September, just one has come from open play, with one coming from a free kick and three from the penalty spot.
The stark reality is that Hartford will need to make the most of chances in this one and with Le Rouge allowing fewer than eight shots per game at Keyworth, those chances are going to be hard to come by. Bagging two goals on six shots against Rhode Island last weekend is exactly the kind of performance Hartford will be envisioning again, making a lot out of a little to get a result.
There’s another side to the coin too. For as good as it has been defensively, Detroit is hardly an offensive juggernaut on its own turf, tied with three other teams for the second-worst goals-per-game average at home in the entire league. It has also been held scoreless at home twice in the last seven games, and has just five goals in that span, failing to score a second goal in every single one of those games.
But Hartford, who played excellent defense themselves through the first half of the season, have struggled to maintain focus in that half of the pitch of late, and have failed to record a clean sheet on the road since the final game of July. The Latics were much better against Rhode Island last weekend than the prior outing’s second-half calamity of errors, where they conceded three poor goals to lowly Brooklyn. But even there, miscommunication on a corner and an uncharacteristic hesitancy from Antony Siaha to come for the ball saw Yao score with his backside.
So while there’s a universe where two relatively punchless attacks struggle to score, and this game is decided on penalties, there’s also one where Hartford make another catastrophic error and give Darren Smith or Maxi Rodriguez a clean look at goal. Smith in particular is unlikely to waste the kinds of opportunities that Hartford have been serving up over its recent dip in defensive form.
There is also an X factor, which is that Hartford have managed good results against Detroit, not just this season, but over the entire time that Brendan Burke has been managing the club. Dating back to the beginning of the 2024 season, City do not own a win in regulation over Hartford, with only an ultimately meaningless penalty shootout win in the USL Cup in 2025 giving them anything extra in the head-to-head. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but the history between the two teams should at least give Hartford confidence that they can advance at Detroit’s expense.
Playoff games, particularly in the Eastern Conference, can essentially be coin flips. In 2025, only one of the seven playoff games in the Eastern Conference saw a team score more than one goal, and even then, one of RIFC’s two goals against NCFC came deep in second-half stoppage time.
There’s nothing to suggest that this game will be any different, and if Hartford are to claim a first playoff win in club history, it will very likely have to do it the hard way: on penalties. That may not be a welcome outcome for a club that lost on penalties in last season's playoffs and has just one shootout win in five attempts over the last two seasons, but it nonetheless seems like a likely outcome.
And if it is, everyone watching in Hartford will once again be holding their breath.
