2025 Hartford Athletic Season Preview
The Latics enter the season with one playoff appearance in six seasons, but look to change that with a revamped squad
Hartford Athletic prepare to kick off the club's seventh season in the USL Championship on Friday, with manager Brendan Burke entering his second year at the helm. It’s been a busy offseason for the club, with a number of new faces joining a strong group of returning players as the Latics enter the year hoping to reach the playoffs for the first time since the pandemic-hit 2020 season.
Offseason Changes
For really the first time in club history, the Latics retained a solid core of players from the previous season. Mamadou Dieng, Michee Ngalina, Deshane Beckford, Kyle Edwards, Marlon Hairston, Beverly Makangila, Emmanuel Samadia, Pele Ousmanou, Joe Farrell and Jordan Scarlett all return for 2025. That’s six of the ten players who logged the most minutes for Hartford in 2024, and two others — Hairston and Samadia — who were regular starters in the second half of the season. Hartford also returned four of its top five goalscorers from the last campaign, players who combined for 25 of the Latics 39 goals in 2024.
Even with the return of this core, there are a number of fresh faces who can be expected to play serious minutes. With the departure of Renan Ribeiro, new arrival Antony Siaha figures to be the first choice keeper for Hartford, Adrián Diz Pe and Sebastian Anderson look to be joining the first eleven on the back line, and some combination of Junior Moreira, Samuel Careaga and Jonathan Jimenez will contribute in midfield. Forward Adewale Obalola and defender TJ Presthus are the other new faces, although both figure to start the season on the bench.
The mix of returnees and fresh faces leaves the Latics with a number of pressing questions, the answers to which will determine how the season goes.
Can Mamadou Dieng take another step?
In the first half of the 2024 season, Dieng was promising, but frustrating. He was doing everything a forward needs to do… except score. Through his first twelve league appearances, Dieng was arguably the most profligate player in the league, failing to score and consequently falling below his expected goals by more than half a goal per game as he tallied just shy of 400 minutes in that span.
Following the departure of Romario Williams, however, the story was entirely different.
Dieng scored his first goal at home against Charleston on July 12, and from there he was on a tear, only golden boot winner Nick Markanich scored more goals over the remainder of the season. And where Dieng had been incredibly wasteful in the first few months of the season, from July he returned almost exactly as many goals as expected.
If Dieng can deliver at that level in 2025, Hartford fans will be happy, but for a player who has just turned 21 the question has to be whether or not he can reach another level. One particular area of improvement to look for in the early going will be whether Dieng looks sharper in situations where he is one–on-one with the keeper. That was the weakest area of his game in 2024, and more clinical finishing will be one key to making the leap in 2025.
Can Michee Ngalina play like a star?
It’s strange to say that a player who had eight goals and five assists was down, but Ngalina was undeniably down in 2024. Balanced against the minutes he played, it might have been his worst professional season from a statistical perspective. He showed his quality from to time, but didn’t consistently deliver at the same level he did in Colorado Springs, particularly in 2022, where he was in the USL Championship Team of the Week seven times, won Player of the Week once, and was the Young Player of the Season.
Some of that failure was a team-wide problem, as the wingers were often isolated and asked to do too much without a lot of support through the middle of the park (something that also needs to be addressed this season). Perhaps it was injury — he carried a knock basically all season — but whatever the reason, Ngalina was too often less than his scintillating best.
Where does the creative spark in midfield come from?
In 2024, the Latics struggled to find the right player to slot in as an attacking midfielder. Marcus Epps got the first crack — and had a few good games — but was unable to find any consistency. Experiments with Jay Chapman and Anderson Asiedu didn’t bring any joy either.
It was only when Danny Barrera was given regular minutes in the back half of the season that things started to click a little more and Barrera is not on the roster anymore. Heading into 2025, Hartford has two real options on the roster to provide that spark: Jonathan Jimenez and Samuel Careaga. Careaga — a loanee from Lanús who played in the Championship with now-defunct Memphis 901FC last year — only joined up with the club this past week. It’s possible that depending on his fitness level, he gets thrown directly into the starting lineup as soon as he is available. If not, it will presumably be Jimenez who takes on the No. 10 role, as he did in the friendly against the New England Revolution.
Both players come with some question marks.
In his tenure with NYCFC II, Jimenez was deployed more often as part of the front three, and might project more as a nine-and-a-half than a true ten. In Memphis, Careaga typically played more as an eight. Now, in the case of Careaga, Memphis also had Bruno Lapa — an all-league player — at attacking midfield so it’s entirely possible that the Argentinian is set to thrive when given the spotlight, but it is a question that will need to be answered sooner rather than later.
How quickly can the defense come together?
Hartford’s defense was a bit of a mixed bag in 2024. A rough start to the season — including games against Louisville and Indy that resulted in a total of ten goals conceded — and also a stretch that ended with the longest shutout streak in club history before winding up the season by conceding 11 goals in five games. While things were better in the second half of the season, there was room for improvement and Hartford have definitely made changes with new faces constituting half the back line, not to mention the replacement of USL Championship Goalkeeper of the Year Renan Ribeiro with Antony Siaha. The long-term hope for the 2025 season has to be that the changes are positive ones, but a solid defense doesn’t come together overnight and if it takes any length of time for the back line to build understanding and cohesion, the Latics could be in for a rough few months to start the season.
How does Hartford measure up in the Eastern Conference?
In 2024, the Latics finished 10th in the Conference, four points out of the playoff positions. They entered the final week of the season with the possibility of slipping into the playoffs if they won out but a draw against Tampa Bay and a loss in Orange County meant they finished on 44 points and missed out. This point total would have been enough to make the playoffs in 2023 and if the playoffs had been expanded to eight teams in 2022, it would have been enough to sneak in then as well.
All of which is to say that while Hartford wasn’t good in 2024, it was perhaps a little unfortunate to miss out on the playoffs as the Eastern Conference was unusually competitive. Even a slightly better performance would almost certainly be enough to grab the eighth spot in 2025.
Is Hartford capable of “slightly better” in 2025? Definitely.
It won’t be easy — the top of the East is loaded — but teams like North Carolina, Loudoun, Detroit City and Miami also have serious questions and the Latics have the talent in their first eleven to be competitive all season long. A lot will depend on how quickly the side comes together as a repeat of last season’s six-game losing streak (which was actually seven losses in eight, with the only result in there being a win over Miami) will leave the team with a mountain to climb once again. More consistency in the early going will be a key factor in how the season goes, but this team certainly has the ability to make the playoffs.
With the season opener only days away, there isn’t long to wait. Hartford fans will be hoping for a repeat of last season’s opening-day win in El Paso and a positive start to the campaign.