Montreal Impact coach Remi Garde hopes a focus on fitness will pay off this season

Impact coach Remi Garde will watch 28 players at training camp in Lakewood Ranch, Fla., after placing an emphasis on fitness during his first year last season. Some players prepared differently in the off-season to adjust.

"I ran a lot more,'' Impact goalkeeper Evan Bush said. "The first half last season, coming out of camp, I had a little bit of a calf and Achilles [pain] that I was carrying with me because of all the running that we did.''

The team will play two pre-season games in Florida before returning to Montreal on Feb. 7. Four days later, they will return to St. Petersburg, Fla., for three more pre-season contests.

The Impact went through a number of changes last season, from a new manager to many new faces on the team.

Despite a slow start, the Impact fought for a playoff spot in the second half of the season, only to miss out on the final day of the regular season.

The Impact will need their fitness, and good fortune, for the start of the 2019 campaign. Eight of the team's first nine games will be on the road, and the Impact's struggles away from home have been well documented.

"We're going to have change that mentality of playing road games,'' midfielder Samuel Piette said. "When we play on the road, it's 11 versus 11 and sometimes 25,000 in the crowd. So it's harder. But we need a winning mentality even if we're not at home.''

Montreal's first pre-season game will be against expansion team FC Cincinnati on Jan. 30.