Dynamite Dieng Delivers as Hartford Dominate New Mexico United
The forward became the club's all-time leading scorer with a brace to lead them to victory on Wednesday night
Mamadou Dieng etched his name in the Hartford Athletic history books on Wednesday night, with a two-goal performance that saw him overtake Danny Barrera to become the club’s all-time leading scorer with 19 goals in all competitions. The brace was part of a dominant effort by the Latics, who comfortably disposed of Western Conference foes New Mexico United by a score of 4-0, with Michee Ngalina and Kyle Edwards providing the other goals.
Hartford used a first-half blitz to put the game to bed early, scoring three goals in less than ten minutes as they capitalized on a series of New Mexico errors. The first warning signs for the visitors came early, when Sebastian Anderson was fouled in a dangerous location just outside the penalty area. Emmanuel Samadia took an excellent free kick that forced New Mexico keeper Alex Tambakis into an excellent save, just getting his fingertips to the ball to push it onto the frame of the goal and out of harm’s way.
New Mexico maintained the bulk of the possession, but Hartford continued to probe on the counter-attack and finally opened the scoring in the 17th minute. Marlon Hairston’s pressure forced New Mexico into a turnover in their own third, and Dieng put Ousman Jabang on skates before a cut-back shot left Tambakis stranded and gave Hartford the lead. It was Dieng’s 18th goal in all competitions for the club, drawing him level with Danny Barrera for the all-time lead.
Hartford doubled its lead in the 24th minute. Jabang’s night got even worse, as his back-pass was short of Tambakis, and an alert Dieng was first to the ball, rounded the keeper, and was able to dribble the ball into the back of the net to become Hartford Athletic’s all-time leading scorer.
Just two minutes later, the Latics increased their lead, with Dieng this time doing the hard work to create for his teammates. After an excellent effort to retain possession and beat his man on the right-hand side, Dieng dribbled into the box. While the ball was poked away from his feet, it fell right to Jonathan Jimenez, who slid the ball out to Michee Ngalina, whose curling first-time effort beat Tambakis to give Hartford their third of the night.
Dieng had several chances to finish his hat-trick, first with an audacious attempted chip of Tambakis in the 42nd minute, but his shot pinged off the woodwork with the New Mexico keeper beaten. In the second half, a close-range effort on the hour mark went high and wide, and then another bad giveaway by the New Mexico defense gifted the ball to Ngalina, who found Dieng with a perfect through-ball, but the forward’s effort hit the post again.
Kyle Edwards was brought on in the 79th minute and almost immediately completed the rout. Jabang was once again at fault for New Mexico, as his loose pass was intercepted by Edwards, who burst through what was left of the visiting defence, easily beat a recovering Jabang, and slotted the ball past Tambakis for his 16th all-time goal for Hartford.
It was a pure display of counter-attacking football, with the Latics’ four goals coming despite holding only 25 percent of the ball. The goals were all well-deserved, with Hartford’s xG of 3.31 (per American Soccer Analysis) the fourth-best showing by that metric by a USL Championship club this season. It was a well-earned three points that not only levered them off the bottom of the Eastern Conference table, but also set them a mere three points off the playoff places with at least one game in hand over all three teams that sit between them and 8th place. With one of those — Miami FC — coming to Trinity Health Stadium in a week’s time, the stage is set for Harford to mount a second-half charge - if they can find some consistency.