Hartford Athletic will take the field for the first time in 2026 on Saturday night, as they take on USL Championship newcomers Sporting Club Jacksonville at Hodges Stadium. It’s the second season in a row that Hartford have kicked things off on the road against league newcomers, following a 2-0 loss to Lexington SC at the beginning of the 2024 season.

Heading into the opener, Hartford will be without Emmanuel Samadia, and with Baboucarr Njie’s status unclear - he suffered a significant injury at the tail end of 2025 and might not be 100% yet - it seems likely that Matt Real will start on the left-hand side of the Hartford defense. While missing a player like Samadia is never good, Real is no ordinary alternative. He has over 100 appearances in the USL Championship - not to mention having been an everyday player for Colorado Springs Switchbacks when they won the league title - but he also has a long history with Brendan Burke: back in 2016, when Burke was in his first season as a manager with Bethlehem Steel, he gave Real his first professional start.

For Burke, having Real around is important for a number of reasons: “It’s really cool. Matt’s an adult now. He was a kid when he got his first start…I’ve been around Matt since he was 10 years old. That’s part of the depth that I was talking about. Manu has had visa issues. We had all sorts of trouble getting him into the country. He’s probably not going to be here until April. Having a guy like Matt, we have another starter. I trust him, he trusts me, we both know what to expect. His teammates recognize that. He started for Colorado Springs when they won the whole thing [in 2024].”

In addition to Samadia and Njie, other players may not be fully available through injury, a lack of fitness, or other concerns, and Burke will once again enter the season without quite all of his weapons available to him - but he nonetheless maintained that the position is considerably brighter than a year ago, when Hartford had only 17 professional players on the roster when the season opened. Including loanee Britton Fischer, Burke has 20 players to call on - with two  more signings likely by the summer - and according to the manager, the squad is, on balance, “healthier” than in the opening weeks of last season.

On the other side of the pitch, Sporting Jax are an entirely new club, which it makes it a little challenging to know exactly what to expect - but one of Burke’s advantages is that he’s been around the league so long, that there few surprises: “We’ve gotten our hands on what they can. We have an idea of shape. I’ve coached a handful of their players, and I know others. So there’s some familiarity. So we’re not overly concerned. I think that goes back to experience, when you’ve been in the league so long, there aren’t many guys I don’t know…we feel like we have a good bead them.”

The limited tape publicly available on Sporting Jax - from their preseason game against Charleston Battery - suggests that they will take a fairly direct approach, and Burke expects more of the same: “I certainly do [expect that]. [Former NCFC forward Adam] Luckhurst up did a great job against us last year, he’s really disruptive. He puts in hard yards, and he’s a big kid. But we’re happy to play that way too. If you want to get out and run with us, we’re happy to do that.”

It’s hard to say exactly how things will play out on Saturday night. Sporting Jax are new to this - and manager Liam Fox has not exactly had a great deal of on-field success. Hartford are once again kicking off the season without exactly the preseason Brendan Burke would have preferred, and will be missing at least one key player. And looming over all of it, of course, is the threat of a work stoppage, as negotiations between the league and the USLPA seem to have almost completely broken down. With all that, Burke’s priority is to keep his team focused, and let his skilled, experienced team shine through: “If we’re disciplined, our talent will take over.”