WHO: Hartford Athletic, 6W-4D-18L, 22 points, 17th place Eastern Conference

WHAT: A regular season USL Championship match

WHEN: Saturday, September 14, 2019, 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: Dillon Stadium, 250 Huyshope Ave., Hartford, CT 06106

WATCH: The club watch party is at Hopcat on Baxter this week. You can probably also catch it at Against the Grain, Saints, Molly Malone’s, Mellwood Tavern, and other fine establishments around town. TV broadcast is on WBKI-58 as usual, radio broadcast is on one of the iHeart AM stations, and the stream will be on ESPN+.

WHO, AGAIN? This is apparently Hartford’s first ever night match at Dillon Stadium, which is kind of exciting. For them, anyway.

Hartford is bad. They’ve given up 68 goals on the season. That’s a lot. Yes, they’ve scored 40, and that’s better than LouCity, but still. 68 goals.

They’re on a decent enough run of form, winning two of their last five and losing the other three. They’ve won four, lost six, and drawn three in home games. They put five goals on Loudoun last weekend, something LouCity can’t say.

Sebastian Dalgaard is probably the only name on the roster you’d recognize, and he leads the team in scoring with five goals. They’ve got a couple of decent chance creators on the team in Mads Jorgenson and Danny Barrera. They’ve got two actually pretty good goalkeepers in Jon Kempin and Cody Cropper, but when the defense is that bad, the goalkeeper becomes slightly less relevant.

This is a game City needs to win. They’re probably still down at least two guys due to injury (DelPiccolo and Ownby), and I’d be surprised if either Speedy Williams or Shaun Francis started, just coming back from international duty with Jamaica. Paco is back and available. Ben Lundt’s status is unknown, but that’s less concerning on the back of Chris Hubbard’s breakout season. Still, last week, City had to have Elijah Wonder and Geoff Dee in the 18, that’s how thing things were.

And it shouldn’t matter. Much, anyway. City needs to score early and often in this game and, frankly, put it on cruise control. I doubt Hartford will oblige them of that, but it’s certainly what needs to happen. City have put up some valiant efforts against very good competition the last three or four weeks, and they’re due. Let’s go get it.