Hartford Athletic Look to Sustain Momentum, Host Struggling Tampa Bay Rowdies
Brendan Burke & Co. look to make it three wins in a row in the USL Championship
Hartford Athletic return to action on a short week as they host Tampa Bay Rowdies in a battle of the bottom two teams in the Eastern Conference. The Latics began a busy week which will conclude with a visit to local rivals RIFC on Saturday.
The short week will stretch Brendan Burke’s squad, as the limited roster is once again reduced by injuries. Kyle Edwards — who has been in fine form when available —hasn’t played since the win over Loudoun on June 20 when he scored a brace. New England Revolution loanee Jack Panayotou has been unavailable for even longer: he’s made only three appearances in all competitions for the Latics and hasn’t seen the pitch since May 10th as he struggles with a hamstring injury.
In the absence of Edwards, Hartford will need to look elsewhere for goals, and in this respect, the fact that Mamadou Dieng has been heating up a little in recent weeks is a key development. After a somewhat stuttering start to the season, the forward now has six goals in all competitions — including scoring in both of Hartford’s most recent Championship fixtures — and has moved to 17 goals scored for the club, one behind all-time leading scorer Danny Barrera. In 2024, Dieng really rounded into form in the second half of the season, and the Latics will be hoping that things are beginning to fall into place for him in 2025 as well.
As for the opposition, Tampa Bay are uncharacteristically at the bottom of the Eastern Conference table, and have struggled since parting ways with manager Robbie Neilson only four games into the 2025 campaign. Steve Coleman took over in an interim capacity, but he could not get the team on track, winning only two of his twelve games in charge. A week ago, Rowdies made a more permanent move, hiring Dominic Casciato away from Union Omaha in USL League One. In his two full seasons in charge of the Owls, Casciato led them to the Player’s Shield in 2023 and both the Player’s Shield and a league title in 2024.
Both sides will look at this fixture as an opportunity. Despite their positions in the table, they both have games in hand over all the teams ahead of them in the standings and three points on Wednesday would be a critical outcome as they come towards the end of the first half of their Championship seasons. For Hartford, mixed results in recent weeks have somewhat obscured an uptick in form, and while there’s still time to move up the table — particularly with games in hand — nothing less than three points will truly satisfy in a game against a team with whom they currently share the Eastern Conference cellar.