Hadji Barry to Hartford: Assessing the Move

Analyzing the Latics move for the former USL Championship MVP

Photo Courtesy of Orlando City

With Hartford announcing the signing of former USL Championship MVP Hadji Barry, it’s fair to ask what he will bring to the side over the remaining schedule. Brendan Burke’s men have nine games remaining on their schedule, but will be hoping for more, with a place in both the USL Championship playoffs and the USL Jägermeister Cup finals on the line in the coming weeks and the addition of Barry is made with all of that in mind.

Do Hartford Need Another Forward?

The first, and most obvious question, is if Barry fills a need, and the answer is unequivocally yes. The sale of Mamadou Dieng to Minnesota United of MLS and the loan of Deshane Beckford to Westchester in League One has depleted Hartford’s attack at a critical juncture of the season. While the Latics had recorded six goals in their first two games following the departure of Dieng, and Beckford had barely featured over their recent nine-game unbeaten streak, the story was very different against Indy Eleven last night.

With Kyle Edwards and Michee Ngalina both starting, Burke’s attacking options on the bench were Jack Panayotou, Jonathan Jimenez, and Adewale Obalola. While all three have made contributions over the course of the season, it’s a big change from when the Hartford manager was able to supplement all-time leading scorer Dieng with super-sub Edwards. Furthermore, Edwards is now the only player on the roster who projects as a number nine of any description, and his history suggests that he is most effective when he can be rotated in and out of the starting eleven on a regular basis.

What Were The Other Options?

There are three ways to get a player: sign a free agent, buy from another club, or swing a loan. Each comes with risks and limitations, and a brief glance at the other avenues Burke could have pursued helps to illuminate why Barry was ultimately the choice.

The reality is that Hartford doesn’t simply need a body to make up the numbers in training or fill out the roster; the club needs a player who has the potential to be a contributor down the stretch. The list of available veteran forwards who have demonstrated they can contribute in the USL Championship is, in a word, short.

Christian Volesky, who has 61 goals in the league for his career, is available, with his most recent appearances being under a 25-day contract with Lexington earlier this season. Volesky hasn’t scored a professional goal since 2023. Justin Dhillon, who was in excellent form for Colorado Springs earlier this season, stepped away from that club for personal reasons and is unlikely to be truly available.

Other than league all-time leading scorer Dane Kelly, who hasn’t played since 2023 but doesn’t seem to have formally announced his retirement, and Santi Moar, who was most recently playing in the Italian Serie D, it does not appear that any other forwards in the top 50 all-time league scorers are even theoretically available other than Barry.

If the free agent pickings are slim, the options for buying another player might be even slimmer. No team is out of the running for a playoff spot in either conference of the USL Championship, and selling a forward that would be in demand for another club would be tantamount to giving up on the season. The players who might fit the bill — Birmingham’s Ronaldo Damus, Miami’s Francisco Bonfiglio, or Las Vegas’ Johnny Rodriguez — might not even be for sale.

Even if their current clubs could be persuaded to sell, the price would likely be very high, probably surpassing the rumored $80,000 that New Mexico United paid Orange County SC for Chris Wehan in 2021. It can certainly be worth opening the pocketbook to bring in a player who might be a difference maker, but the price might simply be too high, even if a club is ready to sell.

A loan is more difficult to evaluate, but finding a true impact player this way is challenging. Any player who has a legitimate chance to make an impact — like Seattle’s Osaze De Rosario — is getting their chance with the parent club and any player likely to be available is also much more likely to be a project. Athletic realistically can’t afford to take a chance on an unproven player at this juncture, which brings them back to a veteran, which brings them back to Barry.

What’s The Upside?

The upside is obvious. With Colorado Springs, Barry had 55 goal contributions (41 goals and 14 assists) in 63 games. Before his departure for Egypt, it seemed like he might have a chance to chase down Kelly to become the league’s all-time leading scorer. His two seasons with the Switchbacks might be the best two-year stretch by a center-forward in the history of the league.

At his best, Barry does it all. He has power, pace, an incredible sense of timing, and can score from almost anywhere in and around the penalty area. While his best performances have come when leading the line, he is also comfortable out wide or slipping in behind another forward as a second striker.

His goalscoring naturally draws all the attention, but during his time in Colorado Springs, he was also one of the league’s best playmakers. Fewer than ten players recorded more assists over those two seasons than Barry, and none played primarily as a center-forward.

Familiarity is another key. Barry’s time in Colorado Springs was obviously excellent, but it’s relevant for two further reasons. Firstly, his manager during that stretch was Brendan Burke. The second reason is that while Hartford does have several of Barry’s former teammates in the squad, one of them is extremely significant: Michee Ngalina.

In Colorado Springs, the two combined for 63 goals and 31 assists, and it’s perhaps fair to say that neither one has experienced the same success apart that they did together. A total return to their joint form of three seasons ago might be too much to ask, but the circumstances are right for something of a renaissance for both players.

What Are The Risks?

If the upside is considerable, it doesn’t come without risks. Barry is nearly 33, has struggled for fitness since leaving Colorado Springs, and hasn’t played competitive soccer in over a year.

Hartford fans have been here before with veteran Championship forwards who were at the tail end of their careers. Jose Angulo, Corey Hertzog, and Antoine Hoppenot are all forwards who had accumulated significant accolades but then fizzled in Hartford.

Angulo was the league’s golden boot winner in 2015 and came into the 2019 season with 45 goals in 108 league appearances. Hertzog — who still has the 7th-most goals in league history — had been a second-team all-league selection in 2017 and 2019. Hoppenot was the league assists champion in 2022 and is one of only a literal handful of players to have recorded 40 goals and 40 assists in the Championship.

None truly thrived in Hartford, with Angulo’s six goals the best season return among the bunch. Hertzog failed to make an impact — scoring just one goal — and lasted only 99 days with the club before departing to join Union Omaha in League One (and his time on the pitch was even shorter, with his last appearance for the Latics coming nearly a month before his actual departure). Hoppenot was profligate and unable to create for his teammates during a disastrous 2023 season; he never played professional football again.

The list goes on, too: Ever Guzman, Romario Williams, Elvis Amoh all arrived with high expectations, and all struggled to truly deliver at the anticipated level, although the latter two have subsequently shown that they can still contribute in the right environment. On the other hand, for fans looking to Hartford Athletic history for a more optimistic scenario, there is the case of Ariel Martinez. At 37 years old, he delivered nine goals in 22 appearances. It was his best season in front of goal by a considerable margin.

There is a compelling argument that Barry is a better player than any of those just mentioned. Certainly, none of Angulo, Hertzog, Hoppenot, Guzman, Williams, Amoh or Martinez ever had a season as good as Barry’s 2021 season, and his two-year return of 41 goals and 14 assists in Colorado Springs was better than any two-year stretch any of those players ever managed in their professional careers.

Taking that perspective — that Barry is legitimately a better player than any veteran Hartford have previously signed — it’s fair to argue that even a diminished version will be better than the faded versions of Angulo, et al. who played for the Latics.

The question is, if Barry is diminished, how much?

It’s hard to say. He will be 33 in December: the list of forwards who are having success in the Championship at that age is short. Dane Kelly, Neco Brett, Sebastian Guenzatti, Cameron Lancaster — all players who sit near the top of the USL Championship all-time goalscorers list — have dropped off dramatically once they hit their 30s, and it’s arguing against a trend to say that Barry will be an exception rather than follow the rule.

However, even leaving aside the probably irreproducible season that Martinez had for Hartford in 2022, there are some reasons to believe that an older forward can make a meaningful contribution. Just this season, Corey Burke — who is older than Barry — has bagged seven goals in 19 games for Lexington. Amoh has bounced back from his disappointing spell in Hartford to score nine goals in 26 games for Indy Eleven. In 2024, Stefano Pinho had 10 goals for Birmingham Legion at age 33.

Forwards do tend to decline in their 30s, but it’s not an ironclad law of the universe. In the right situation, Barry could very well thrive, and it’s fair to say that Hartford is the best possible situation for him at this point.

There is one more concern.

Barry also had knee surgery in 2023 and was not able to bounce back from that well enough for Future FC to keep him around. Certainly, Hartford will have done their due diligence from a medical perspective, but adding the knee surgery to his age complicates the assessment of how he might perform.

At his best, Barry was a dynamic presence on the field, with a sense of timing and a burst of pace that could give defenders fits. Surgery will have undoubtedly cost him some of that burst, but it’s hard to say how much. He played only 22 minutes since returning from his injury, and so there simply isn’t much to go on. The singular goal he recorded after his return shows he still retains his impeccable sense of timing, his ability to control the ball, and his accuracy in front of the net, and it may well be that those will be enough for a limited-time engagement in Hartford.

The Bottom Line

What does this all add up to? It’s honestly hard to say.

Barry has been an excellent player in the Championship, but age and injury history as well as a long layoff from competitive minutes are legitimate concerns. Burke captured both parts of the story following Wednesday’s loss to Indy Eleven.

“[W]e have to give him some time,” Burke said. “It's, it's been a while since his last game, but we want to build him up as fast as we can and, you know, have him as an option. I watched the guy pour in something like 55 goal contributions in 60 odd games in Colorado. So just an astonishing return on chances…[W]e have to get him back up to full fitness though. So he deserves that grace period time to build up his fitness, but we have to get him on the field and get a minutes to build that up.”

Time will tell what Barry has left as he builds up his fitness and could possibly start as soon as Saturday in Miami. Perhaps the best news for Hartford is that they simply don’t need him to be 100% of the player he was in Colorado Springs. They don’t need him to dominate, just to complement the good things that are already happening. Even three or four goal contributions over the rest of the season might be enough, and he is a good enough player — and in a good enough situation — that an outcome like that is on the table.