And for the last month, Atlanta United has done that on the field charging through Decision Day, the play-in round, and now the best-of-three Eastern Conference quarterfinals series with Inter Miami- winning 3-2 in Game 3 to advance to the conference semifinals on November 24.
"I'd love to say something fancy- that I'm a tactical genius. But I'm not," interim head coach Rob Valentino admitted after the match. "We just talk about internal belief- fighting and sticking together. We made little tweaks in each game, obviously, and different players get called upon. But that was a big message- that if we were going to do this, it wasn't going to be one player that's going to carry us. I tell this group you're going to have to do this together. You can't have any passengers.
"They really believe that they can do something. It wasn't pretty at times and if you told me we'd have three goals on the road, i would have told you that you were lying. So, they've got some internal belief right now."
The Five Stripes lineup had only one change from Game 2 as Tristan Muyumba was given the start in the midfield for a dinged-up Jay Fortune. The Herons gave two sets of information on the availability of Sergio Busquets (who went from "not available" to training on-the-side and was, officially, questionable) and would be without Yannick Bright and David Ruiz. This gave the notion that Atlanta United could take advantage of players playing out-of-position on the Inter Miami backline in transition.
The first half saw Luis Suarez trying to get under Atlanta's collective skin, but Derrick Williams' quarterbacking kept it scoreless in the first ten. United had their first big chance in the 15th when Aleksei Miranchuk combined down the left with Pedro Amador. Amador then hit a ball that struck the near post flush but Jamal Thiare couldn't corral the rebound for the match's first goal.
That would come when Matias Rojas would put the ball in the net off a Brad Guzan save and rebound two minutes later.
Atlanta United would equalize two minutes later as Dax McCarty would have a pass deflect but make it to his intended target in Thiare. Jamal would rocket a shot past Inter Miami keeper Drake Callender to tie it at 1. Not to be outdone, Miranchuk would combine with Thiare with some imagination in the 21st minute. A subtle touch with his left foot gave just enough space for Jamal to get a brace in only two minutes time.
"Tonight I wasn't expecting it," Jamal said after the match- as translated by Quentin Westberg. "Maybe I haven't been very lucky with my goal scoring opportunities. Everything went great tonight and it's a fantastic memory for myself and for the team." Thiare admitted he was "a little" tired after the match and doesn't mind running as much as he does in a match to help the team succeed.
The home team and their sellout crowd in Fort Lauderdale thought the match was leveled in the 24th minute but an offside call through VAR review wiped it off the board and United went to the locker room after two big Brad Guzan saves heading to the half would help in the process.
"The last couple of weeks, there's something special in the group and in the locker room... and what that thing is is belief, confidence, and a desire to help the group," Guzan said post-match. "You know, they have all the players - 'best player in the world...' The question is: How do we make up the difference...? It's doing hard running, tackling, and when you do things like that? You give yourself an opportunity."
Guzan would come up big again early in the second half with another of his seven saves in the 52nd. But the "cutback cross" to Messi, instead of from him, drew the match level at two with 25 to go. But, in a game of back-and-forth, Atlanta United added their third goal in a wide open sequence where players from both teams went down during play- the last from Inter Miami- and ended up with a Bartosz Slisz header for the lead again at 3-2. Atlanta would make three subs to bring on fresh legs and hold on- sending the top seed in the Eastern Conference home in 2024.
"I think it's resilience. I think it's grit. I think it's suffering and accepting that you're going to suffer against good teams in this league. And if you can bend, bend, bend, don't break you can be successful," Dax McCarty adds. "As a team, listen, it's been very up and down, very inconsistent throughout the season. all i can say is we found 'something.' And it's hard for me to describe what it is, really, that you can't quite put your finger on.
"It's a combination of playing like we have nothing to lose- playing essentially knockout games that can, potentially, end our season for over a month so, a lot of teams can fold. For whatever reason, we're rising to the occasion."
The Eastern Conference semifinal involving Atlanta United and Orlando City will be in the afternoon on November 24 in Orlando, kickoff slightly after 3:30 eastern time. Now that the semifinals stage has been reached, all matches in the MLS Cup playoffs are one-and-dones...
Some fun facts in this one...
From Jason: Inter Miami last 6 matches in MLS competition in 2024. Atlanta United was responsible for half of those
From Mike Conti: Five different Atlanta United players scored in the series and five different players registered assists. Brad, in this series, had 16 saves and a 76.1-percent save percentage along the way.
Inter Miami had 25 shots to Atlanta United's 9- 17 of those inside the 18. Atlanta United also had 41 clearances on the night.
REMINDER: Keep an eye across all the SDH Network social media channels all weekend for all the news in and around Match Day 3 in Fort Lauderdale. We'll also see you first thing Monday morning at 9:05 eastern as the SDH Morning Show gets your thoughts as well...
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