Trio of Hartford Athletic Players Receive Weekly Honors Amidst Improbable Playoff Push
Trio of Hartford Athletic Players Receive Weekly Honors Amidst Improbable Playoff Push
A European veteran and breakout youngster have Hartford in their best run of form in five years as the race for the playoffs heats up in the Eastern Conference.
It’s been a whirlwind of a month for Hartford Athletic.
A 3-0 loss to El Clamico rivals Rhode Island FC in early August put the Green and Blue in an eight-point hole at the business end of the season, with the door to the playoffs seemingly all but shut.
However, a miraculous turnaround — including consecutive 2-1 wins against some of the top teams in the USL Championship in Louisville and Las Vegas — has Hartford unbeaten in six matches since then with three straight clean sheets, closing the gap to just three points between Hartford and eighth-place Rhode Island.
The unbeaten run of form is Hartford’s longest since the COVID-shortened 2020 season, which coincidentally ended in the only playoff appearance in club history. Now, the race for the playoffs is officially back on, and for the first time since the condensed 2020 season, that race involves Hartford Athletic.
The run of form is largely thanks to standout performances from players on opposite ends of the ball, and at opposite points in their careers — European veteran Renan Ribeiro seems virtually impossible to beat between the sticks, leading to the first Player of the Week nod in Hartford Athletic history, while 20-year-old breakout striker Mamadou Dieng just can’t stop scoring for the Green and Blue.
Despite missing the opening eight games of the season with a quad injury and not seeing action for more than four seasons prior to signing for Hartford, Ribeiro has lived up to his price tag so far in 2024. His 81 saves rank third in the USL Championship and are the second-most for a keeper in a single season in club history, while his 80 percent save percentage leads the USL Championship. Three of his six clean sheets on the year have come in the last three matches, making 10 combined saves in his last two to keep opponents remarkably quiet with a slew of acrobatic stops.
Defensively, Joe Farrell also took home Team on the Week honors following the win in Miami that saw him complete 64 of his 66 passes with three clearances. The center back has played every minute of Hartford’s six-game unbeaten stretch at the heart of a defense that is one of the hardest to beat in the USL Championship of late.
Finally, the emergence of Dieng as Hartford’s primary target man has been critical to the club’s recent success. Notching his second professional brace in the space of five games in Miami, the 20-year-old striker now has a team-leading nine goals in 2024, including six in his last six games. Displaying a keen finishing instinct in the box that Hartford were so desperately missing in the early stages of the season, the Senegalese sensation picked up his third nod to the league’s best XI this season.
After a 3-0 win in Miami in what was only Hartford’s second road win of the year backed up a pair of consecutive 0-0 draws, Hartford return to action at home on Saturday, where they most recently bested both Louisville and Las Vegas in back-to-back weeks, to face off against Oakland Roots.
Depending on other results, a win could put Hartford in playoff territory for the first time since the early stages of the 2024 season, as what promises to be a thrilling final month of the regular season gets underway.