Hartford Athletic close out a busy week with a USL Championship clash against Miami FC on Saturday night at Trinity Health Stadium. It's the third game in seven days for Brendan Burke's men, and also their first game at home since July 11, as they've played their last five games on the road.
The Latics then took care of business in their most recent road game, going four goals to the good against Charlotte on Wednesday, before a late fightback saw the Jacks narrow the scoreline to 4-2. It’s a result that manager Brendan Burke says “gives eeryone confidence,” before going on to single out the contributions of his newest player.
“Mikey Adedokun deserves a shitload of credit for his contribution," Burke said. "He set up three of those goals, he was excellent on the night.”
Adedokun was truly excellent on the night, not only creating three of Hartford’s four goals, but also making four defensive contributions and winning all his duels in midfield. Burke called his addition “another huge boost to the locker room”, going on to say that “there's a lot of really positive things coming out of that game,” particularly concerning the overall health of the squad, which continues to improve.
But of those positive things, “ultimately, the most important is a home semifinal,” said Burke. “That’s the second year in a row. There are very, very few teams across the USL landscape that could say that.”
Hartford’s improving health is key to their continued success. A month ago, Burke could barely field a starting eleven in El Clamico. Now, he has been able to rotate through three games in seven days, something that was a huge part of how Hartford was able to manage a Cup run and get back to the USL Championship playoffs in 2025. Burke made that comparison when speaking to The Blazing Musket on Friday.
“This was the kind of scene last year where we could rotate through heavy periods, light periods, it didn't matter," he said. "We had 20 guys who were capable of going out and winning any type of game”
And Hartford still aren’t quite there, with Burke quick to point out that key players are still missing.
“You know, Samu [Samuel Careaga], Michee [Ngalina], still really aren't playing a part in this, but they're about to," Burke said. "Certainly on Michee’s front, he's about to.”
Those additions, along with increasing minutes for players like Sebastian Anderson and Emmanuel Samadia, give Burke options, not just to keep his players fit but to try and gain a tactical advantage in any given game. And that helps to build the confidence that carried the team through the summer of 2025.
Hartford’s opponents on Saturday night have had a similar week, as it played a Championship game last weekend before traveling to San Antonio for a USL Cup quarterfinal of their own. Whereas Hartford have had a successful week so far, Miami have not, losing to Las Vegas in the league and then dropping their knockout game as well. It leaves Miami manager Gastón Maddoni in much the same position as Burke, needing to make difficult decisions about who is fit enough to play at the tail end of a busy week. It also makes it hard to know exactly what to expect from Miami on Saturday night, which complicates some of Burke’s decisions even further.
“I really don't know what to expect from them if they're going to try to turn some of their older players. I certainly expect to see guys who didn't start on Wednesday mixed in at least. But will we see [Jürgen] Locadia? Will we see [Arney] Rocha? I don't know. Those guys went 90 minutes in the Texas heat the other night and then had to travel up here.”
Locadia in particular would be a big miss; the 32-year-old, who represented Curacao in the FIFA World Cup earlier this summer, is Miami’s leading scorer, and when he isn’t on the pitch, they’ve struggled to get things going in attack. Lacking a player with Locadia’s physical attributes would change the challenge for Hartford’s defense, but with no clear sense of whether or not Locadia will even be on the pitch, Burke is more focused on his own attack and keeping things rolling with a different group of forwards.
Barry Coffey and Abdullah Taofeek, both of whom missed the game in Charlotte, are all but guaranteed to start on Saturday night. Burke noted that he expects both players to make a difference, emphasizing again the importance of being able to rotate and put some fully rested players into the lineup.
“Barry Coffey, He's been good for us all year, and I would expect that he has an impact on the game tomorrow. And then Taofeek is a handful. He's still only 18 years old. I still continue to think that the sky is the limit for him. So him coming in fresh, we didn't have to use them because we had a deep bench on Wednesday. We have opportunities to unleash fully fit, rested guys.”
With Sadat Anaku, Adewale Obalola and Augi Williams all finding the back of the net midweek, the pressure will be on Coffey and Taofeek – as well as Ngalina, who is likely to see his minutes of the bench expanded – to show that they can contribute to the attack as well. And everyone in the stadium, from the players to the technical staff to the fans, will be watching for signs that Wednesday’s four-goal outburst is the start of something sustainable, and not just a flash in the pan against a team from a lower division.
