Photo: Bobby Sunner

Preseason officially kicked off for Orlando City on Monday morning, with the club entering its final season in the USL PRO prior to joining Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2015. Despite the excitement of MLS looming over the club’s future, the goals and expectations have not changed for Head Coach Adrian Heath and the Lions for the final USL PRO season, which begins in a little under two months.

“We’ve got another season to go in the USL and this league has been good to us,” Heath said. “We want to make sure we give it the respect they deserve. It’s the usual scenario – we want to win the league, we want to win the regular season, and we want to win the playoffs. The expectations are very, very high and the demands are going to be high as well.”

In what some players described as a long offseason, the excitement to get back to playing soccer did not go unnoticed Monday after training.

“I think everyone was past ready to get going,” Midfielder Jamie Watson said. “I think there was an excitement and enthusiasm that has been even more elevated then in years past. It was fun to be apart of, but it’s only going to get harder from here.”

Defender Rob Valentino echoed Watson’s sentiments, saying, “It was nice and sharp today, everyone was ready to play. It’s just great to be back around all the guys.”

With the first preseason game looming against the Chicago Fire a little over a week away, the Lions do not have much time to get into game shape. Heath and his staff will try to make the most the time they have available this week, saying despite the short turnaround his players are expected to perform.

“We all know it (preseason) comes around early for us,” Heath said. “We want to play them (Chicago) and we want to play MLS teams. We play the Fire down at IMG in less than nine days, and this is the first day of training we’ve had.”

According to Valentino, the preseason is not the same as it used to be. Instead of coming to preseason to get back into shape, players are expected to come in already in shape so they do not miss a beat.

“That was our job in the offseason – stay in shape,” Valentino continued. “I think they made it clear in our communications over the offseason. I’ve been here for a couple of years and I’ve known that is to be expected because we get started right away. Coach made it pretty clear we got a game pretty soon so let’s get right to the soccer stuff. It’s just the first day so we’re feeling a lot more fresh then we will be by the end of the week.”

Over the last four to six weeks, the team had been meeting with the strength and conditioning coaches three times a week. They started off inside the gym and slowly transitioned back outside and onto the pitch. One player in particular, Watson, was glad that he now had a ball at his feet rather then running around cones.

“It’s nice to actually have a ball out and to be chasing around a ball instead of chasing an imaginary ball around with cones or chasing imaginary rabbits on our treadmill, it definitely makes running so much easier,” Watson said with smile.

“I’m just real excited to be playing again.”