Hartford Athletic look to cap another USL Cup campaign with a second trophy, as they welcome Louisville City back to Trinity Health Stadium on Sunday afternoon. It’s a chance for Hartford to stake a claim as one of the top teams in the league, joining a very short list of active clubs who have multiple trophies, while also capitalizing on yet another late-season run of form that has taken them from strugglers to contenders.
Last year, the run to the cup final was the culmination of a white-hot streak that saw Hartford completely transform the narrative of their season In mid-June, they were stuck on just six points in the league, with only one win in the Championship as fans staged protests against owner Buce Mandell. Over the next four months, the Latics exploded, taking 38 points from their next 17 league games, as well as advancing to and then winning the USL Cup to claim the first silverware in club history.
Getting back to that final was one of Hartford’s goals for this season, something that Brendan Burke and his technical staff held up as the minimum acceptable outcome for 2026. Achieving that goal means Hartford have accomplished something few other Championship teams have achieved: getting to back-to-back finals of a knockout competition.
The history of the USL Cup is too short for meaningful comparison – Hartford have played in two of the three finals contested in its history – but the history of the league itself produces a short list of clubs with a comparable achievement. Tampa Bay Rowdies reached back-to-back finals in 2020 and 2021, although the 2020 final was not contested after several Rowdies players tested positive for Covid in the days before the game was scheduled to take place. Louisville City reached three consecutive finals from 2017-2019, and lifted back-to-back trophies in 2017 and 2018, the only club in league history to do so. And Swope Park Rangers (now Sporting Kansas City II of MLS Next Pro) reached the final in 2016 and 2017.
And only two teams have won the Player’s Shield – for best regular season record – in back-to-back seasons. Louisville City did it both 2024 and 2025, and Orlando City did it in 2011 and 2012, the first two seasons of the modern league, following the USL-NASL split and the merger of the old USL First and Second Divisions.
It’s always difficult to sustain success from year to year, and that Hartford have already added their name to a list that includes some of the leagues blue bloods is quite the turnaround given where things stood before the arrival of Burke. Three years ago at this time, the Latics were mired in an 11 game winless streak to close out the 2023 season, with Tab Ramos having been out of a job for three months already, and Omid Namazi less than a month from being shown the door as well. At that point, Hartford had just one winning season in its first five, and that came in a pandemic-shortened 2020 season where it played 12 of 16 games against MLS II teams.
Last year, Hartford upended the perception of the club as one that would never be able to find success. To get back to another final – to join the short list of teams that have managed that feat within the USL ecosystem – begins to put the club in an entirely different set of conversations. “It's massive,” said Burke, speaking to the Blazing Musket ahead of Sunday’s final. “It puts you in a different conversation in terms of how you're viewed from the outside, but also how you feel and how you're viewed from the inside. By your own fan base, by your own locker room, by your own staff.”
And that changing perception helps propel the team forward, particularly as they have run through a physically demanding stretch of games to get here.
“For all of us, it keeps us going,” added Burke. “Because to go on a run to any final is exhausting. It adds extra games, it adds extra pressure, it adds extra travel. The two-month period that we just went through was one of the worst in my career in terms of just the the grind of moving around and preparing and resetting and preparing and resetting.”
Much like 2025, Hartford hardly had the start to the season that it would have hoped for. While things were better than last season it still has had enormous struggles, particularly in front of goal. Through the first 17 league games, the Latics had been blanked 11 times, and had just 12 goals. Since the last time they were shutout, a 2-nil defeat to Loudoun on August first, Hartford have scored in 9 straight league games, scoring 17 goals along the way, turning one of the league’s worst attacks into one of it’s best.
Hartford are not quite the lethal attack that they were in 2025 - last Friday’s game against Louisville saw them squander more than one chance that could have seen them take all three points - but they’re not longer the misfiring side they were earlier in this campaign.
Now that they’re back in the final, Hartford have one thing going for them that wasn’t on their side in 2025: homefield advantage. After playing Sacramento at Heart Health Park last year, it will instead play hosts for the 2026 final. A small number of Hartford supporters did make the trek out west last season, but being able to pack the stadium with your own fans is a different matter entirely.
“We couldn't have been farther away from home last year,” said Burke. "Even my immediate family couldn't make it to the game. Now you can have friends, family, you can have all those people in the building. Almost all of us will have a big representation [like that] at this game. So it's a huge moment. It'll be a celebration, I hope.I hope it's gonna be the loudest Trinity has ever been.”
Playing at home is important for other reasons, too. Firstly, Hartford have lost just once in regulation at Trinity Health Stadium this season (they did also lose a penalty shootout to RIFC). And secondly, their record at home against Louisville City is far superior to their road record. In fact, under Brendan Burke, the Latics have not lost at home to City, recording a win and two draws in three meetings - a far cry from their record away, where the have lost all three meetings over the last two seasons, being outscored 8-0 in the process.
It’s always better to be at home, of course. Hardly any team in the league would choose to play such a high-stakes game on the road, and Hartford is certainly no exception. But there’s also an added element for Hartford, an opportunity to truly accomplish something special in front of their fans - and then to celebrate with them.
