BRADENTON, Fla. — Kyle Smith had some advice for his new Orlando City teammates entering their first preseason training camp with head coach James O’Connor.
Smith has done this before. He went through the grind of preseason training with O’Connor while the two were at Louisville City. O’Connor was the head coach at Louisville City from 2015 until he joined the Lions in 2018, and Smith played for Louisville City from 2016 until the end of last season.
Early on, the Lions asked Smith what’s in store for them at IMG Academy in Bradenton.
“I try to help them and tell them you’ve got to be ready,” he told Pro Soccer USA. “I know it’s going to be challenging, but just push through because there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
“It’s just very intense. It starts off hard. It continues to be hard throughout the entire preseason. You’ve just got to keep pushing and eventually you will make it through.”
With a smile, he added, “If you can’t feel your legs for a little bit, you’ve got to just keep running.”
Smith said O’Connor reached out to him as soon as his 2018 USL championship (formerly USL) season was over. The 27-year-old right back had just won a second consecutive title with Louisville City and O’Connor called to gauge his interest in joining Orlando City.
It was a tough decision, Smith said, after he’d had a lot of success with Louisville City.
“We had won the USL Cup against Phoenix and [O’Connor] called me the next day and told me that he wanted me to come in to the team,” Smith said. “I was very excited when I got that information. There was a process of a couple of months and then I signed a contract.”
Smith said he’s a player who “leaves it all on the field,” a sentiment that lines up with what O’Connor has asked for from Orlando City’s players since joining the team in the middle of last season.
“This was my dream, to make it to MLS and to play for a team like this and an organization like this,” he said. “It means the world to me, because this is what I’ve been working for for eight years now. It’s very rewarding and I’m hopefully not going to squander this opportunity and I’m going to give it my all.”
“I don’t want to have any regret and feel like I maybe could have given it some more.”
Acosta ready to make impression
Danilo Acosta knows his future with the U.S. men’s national team is, first and foremost, dependent on how he performs with Orlando City.
“The only way you can get that is by doing really good in your club,” he said. “As long as I’m doing really good in my club, everything’s going great, the team’s is doing good – which is the most important part, as far as the team goes, and then the individual part – if that goes good, then I get the call-up, then now I have to take advantage of it.”
Acosta was called into January camp last year under interim coach Dave Sarachan, but he was left off new coach Gregg Berhalter’s roster for this year’s January camp.
Acosta said he’s not paying too much attention to what’s going on with the U.S. men’s national team – his focus is 100 percent on Orlando City’s preseason training camp.
Acosta lost his starting spot with Real Salt Lake last season and is on a season-long loan with Orlando City. He’s a new player capable of playing left back after the club didn’t bring back the majority of its defenders from last season.
“I’m just here to do anything that I can do for the team to help them out,” he said, adding he’s confident he can play at centerback or, really, anywhere O’Connor needs him.
Acosta said fitness is part of his focus this preseason. He added O’Connor made it clear he was to report to camp fit.
He added he’s trying to be more versatile. He’s confident in his abilities as a defender, but he wants to be able to get up and down the pitch more and contribute to the attack.
“It’s day by day,” he said. “It’s whatever you put on the field, that’s what you’re going to get. If you give your 100 percent, at the end of the day, it’s how much you want it. If you want it really bad, you’ve got to work really hard for it and that’s what I’m going to do.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about competition. I’m trying to do anything I possibly can to win the spot and once I have it, just continue keeping it and get better every day.”