Hartford Athletic Welcome Birmingham Legion In 2024 Home Opener

Brendan Burke and company look to build on their season-opening win with a good result at Trinity Health Stadium on Saturday.

Image courtesy of Hartford Athletic

With heavy rain in the forecast, Hartford Athletic welcomes Birmingham Legion to Trinity Health Stadium tomorrow for the 2024 home opener. The Latics will be looking to maintain momentum from their season-opening visit to El Paso in week one, where a clean sheet and a Romario Williams penalty meant that they came home with all three points. 

Williams will be missing from the lineup on Saturday, as he was called up for Jamaica’s CONCACAF Nations League games, coming on as a substitute in extra time of Thursday’s 3-1 loss to the USMNT. Brendan Burke’s team is built in depth and will be able to rely on a number of players to fill the void in the center of the attack. Veteran Kyle Edwards (who contributed seven goals for Hartford last year) or teenage prospect Mamadou Dieng (who won a place on the bench in El Paso) would seem to be the primary options, but either Marcus Epps or Enoch Mushagalusa could fill the role as well.

Regardless of who leads the line, the Latics will feel like they have options out wide to cause problems for Birmingham and create goals. Winger Michee Ngalina in particular looked in great form on his Hartford debut, and on another night could have had a couple of goals and an assist.

As for Birmingham, they’ve been to the playoffs in each of their five seasons of existence; last season they upset Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs before falling to eventual conference champions Charleston Battery in the semifinals. A lot of key players from that team return, particularly in attack, where Enzo Martinez, Tyler Pasher, Prosper Kasim and former Latic Preston Tabort Etaka are all back for the 2025 campaign.

Birmingham also added well-traveled center forward Mohamed Buya Turay, who is closing in on 50 goals in just under 150 career games, spread across eight teams in five different leagues in Europe and Asia. Throw in highly-touted teenage midfielder Matthew Corcoran, and the Legion have what ought to be a very dangerous attack.

To match up with this, Hartford has a defense whose one performance this season could fairly be described as “bumpy.” Despite keeping a clean sheet, they allowed Locomotive to turn in a performance by expected goals that was the fourth best by any team in the league so far this season.

Hartford were outworked in the air, and completed less than 70% of their passes; leading to El Paso to have nearly two-thirds of possession (and closer to 70% in the second half). With such a dangerous Legion attack coming to town, a more buttoned-up performance will go a long way towards securing another result.

In other weather conditions, Saturday afternoon’s game would promise to be a free-flowing affair between two attacking teams, but heavy rain might turn it into something more pragmatic. Both teams will be well aware of the impact a wet surface can have on the game and it’s unlikely to be very pretty but that doesn’t mean there won’t be goals. Hartford fans will remember last season’s 2-0 win over Loudoun United, played in drenching rain, in which both teams could easily have had another goal as well.

A similar type of game could well be in the cards for tomorrow.