Hartford Athletic Spurn Chances, Fall to Tampa Bay
Brendan Burke branded his team's performance "unprofessional" and "inexcusable" as they suffered another setback in the USL Championship
Hartford Athletic fell 1-0 to fellow Eastern Conference strugglers Tampa Bay Rowdies on Wednesday night, in a game that featured squandered opportunities for the hosts and a late goal for the visitors that consigned the Latics to the bottom of the table again. It was a dispiriting result for a team that has struggled to find or maintain any momentum in the 2025 season, as they found a way to drop points despite largely having the better of the game.
Brendan Burke was again critical of his team’s level of professionalism, lamenting a lack of organization and commitment at both ends of the pitch.
“We had made huge strides over the last couple weeks, even months. [T]hat was a big step backward,” he said. “We were unorganized on our own set pieces. Just inexcusable stuff. Unprofessional stuff. Again, I said it few weeks ago and I unfortunately have to say it again.”
While Hartford did seem to lack some discipline — Antony Siaha made two rash decisions to leave his penalty area and had to be bailed out by his teammates on both occasions — its undoing on Wednesday was really its profligacy. Expected goals never tells the whole story, but Hartford’s 2.50 xG (per American Soccer Analysis) was the second-highest for a team that failed to score in the USL Championship this season.
“[F]or us not to have two goals 30 minutes in, I, I can't really describe how that happened,” Burke said. “I don't know how we didn't score twice.”
And the same could have been said about the second half, where Hartford also failed to convert excellent opportunities. The profligacy set the stage for another late disappointment, as the Latics conceded late to cost themselves a result yet again, something that has been a recurring theme this season and throughout the club’s history. Woobens Pacius was the man who made Hartford pay this time, as it failed to turn a 14-4 edge on shots into a result, and allowed the Rowdies to leapfrog them at the bottom of the Eastern Conference table.
On his message to the team after the loss, Burke pointed toward the need for his team to dig deep, as they face another quick turnaround and a trip to Rhode Island.
“Yeah, I just said rest and recovery, you know, make a decision when you walk out of here tonight, make a decision,” he said. “Do you want to get embarrassed on national television?”
Saturday afternoon’s game which will be broadcast on CBS is a challenge for many reasons, and Burke underscored the need for the correct mentality above everything else.
“It's not about soccer at [this] point,” he said. “[It’s] about showing up ready for a fight.”