Hartford Athletic Announce 2026 Schedule
El Clamico on the last day of the regular reason highlights a much improved schedule
Hartford Athletic released their full season schedule on Tuesday.
It had previously been announced that the club’s home opener would be on March 28th, as the welcome Indy Eleven on a day that will see the Latics raise a banner for the first time in club history, celebrating the club’s USL Cup triumph from 2025. With the full schedule now available, let’s take a peek at the good, the bad, and all the rest.
El Clamico on Decision Day
This might be the best scheduling outcome in Hartford’s history.
RIFC at home on the last day of the regular season is absolute perfection: a decision so obvious it’s only surprising that it’s take the league three years to make it happen. While the best case scenario is obviously a game with playoff implications for both clubs, virtually any outcome is likely to be fascinating, from one team playing spoiler for the other’s playoff hopes to a wooden spoon clash. Emphasizing major rivalries on the last day of the season would be a good move from the league going forward, and making El Clamico a regular feature of decision day would be good business for everyone.
Welcoming The New Boys
Hartford will play newcomers Sporting JAX and Brooklyn FC within the first month of the season, traveling to both Hodges Stadium and Maimonides Park. The Latics will be hoping for a better outcome in both fixtures than their opening tilt against Championship newcomers in 2024, when an opening-day trip to take on self-promoted Lexington SC resulted in a desultory 2-0 defeat.
A Dash of the Western Conference
The Latics will play just six games against the Western Conference. New Mexico, Orange County and El Paso will visit Trinity Health Stadium, while Hartford will then travel to Phoenix, Las Vegas and 2025 Western Conference champions Tulsa. It makes for the fewest games Hartford have played against opposition from out west since the league introduced interconference play during the regular season back in 2022.
Backloaded With Home Games
Unlike 2025, where the Latics were scheduled to play the bulk of the last stretch of games on the road (a rescheduled fixture with Indy Eleven broke it up a little), this year, Hartford are set to finish the season at Trinity Health Stadium.
The last two games, a visit from league newcomers Brooklyn FC as well as El Clamico, will close out the season and Hartford will also play four of the last five and six of the last eight games at home. Taking into account the fact that Hartford has historical turned out its best crowds in the late summer and early fall, that stretch, which begins on September 12th with a visit from Tampa Bay Rowdies is likely to bring bumper crowds and make things just a little bit easier for the ticketing department.
The Schedule is More Balanced - But Not Entirely
In 2025, the balance of the schedule was entirely off, with Hartford scheduled to be done with three teams before the midway point and then not see two others at all until the back half of the season. Things are much better here, as only one team features twice in one half of the Championship schedule, Charleston, who the Latics will take on twice in a month at the business end of the season. Additionally, while 2025 featured scheduled league-cup back-to-backs with Detroit and RIFC, there are no planned back-to-back meetings on the 2026 calendar.
The other aspect of balance here is the number of lengthy road trips or home stands. From that perspective, things aren’t quite ideal. Hartford open the season with three on the road — more on that in a moment — and then later on will play four on the road across late July and early August. At the same time, they’ll also play four consecutive games at home across April and early May. Ideally, those would be trimmed down to no more than two consecutive games at home/away (pending knockout games in either cup competition), and the balance in this respect leaves something to be desired.
Early-Season Road Warriors
As already mentioned, the counterbalance to Hartford’s backloaded home schedule is that they’ll play their first three league games and four of the first games on the road. It might not trouble the front office too much, tickets for March games have never been an easy sell, but it’s not ideal from the perspective of competitive balance. One balancing factor is that Hartford is likely to have that broken up by a home game in the U.S. Open Cup, but it’s nonetheless a little disappointing, particularly as nearby clubs Brooklyn and RIFC get a little more balance in the early going, including an early home league opener.
The USL Cup Unfortunately Stays The Same
A group stage where the teams all don’t play one another feels like the worst of all possible worlds. While it’s understandable that the league has limited options with 43 teams to consider, it’s disappointing that Hartford will be in a group with Portland Hearts of Pine but not get to play them. Hartford will match up with RIFC and Westchester SC again, with Championship newcomers Brooklyn FC and the revived New York Cosmos of League One rounding out the opponents. The league may have had limited options this season, but hopefully in 2027 they’ll be in a better position to find something a little more satisfying.
Going Up Against The World Cup
As expected, the USL is not taking a break during the World Cup. This means that every team will be competing with the World Cup at some point. In Hartford’s case, it’ll play the same day as both Round of 16 and Quarterfinal games (along with some group stage fixtures), although with times still yet to be announced, it’s unclear exactly how ‘head-to-head’ those fixtures will be.
It’s likely that the Championship will look to avoid playing at exactly the same time as World Cup games — particularly knockout fixtures — when possible which could result in Hartford’s July 11 USL Cup game against Westchester SC being scheduled to avoid a direct conflict with either quarterfinal scheduled for that day.
Hartford will also play RIFC on July 18, the day before the World Cup final, up against the third-place game. There’s unlikely to be a direct conflict given the Championship’s typical kickoff of 7 PM local time, but it is potentially a tantalizing weekend, as the league gets to promote one of its marquee rivalries on the eve of the biggest game in the sport.
The Bottom Line
All in all, the schedule for 2026 is a huge improvement on 2025. With unbalanced conferences to contend with, caused by the late-breaking decision of NCFC to go on hiatus, and the USL Cup impacted at least in part by the decisions of Sporting Cascades and Fort Lauderdale United to delay their League One entries to 2027, the USL was working under some major constraints.
There’s still a lack of proper balance — caused by some of the same factors, no doubt — and the league will ultimately need to address the long homestands and road trips that can upset the competitive balance of things. However, it’s ultimately a more favorable schedule, with the real treat being El Clamico on the last day of the season and with all but three of Hartford’s currently-scheduled home games happening on Saturdays, it should keep everyone from the fans to the front office a lot happier.