What's the secret to Atlanta United's recent success? Asking the question is missing the point.

“The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.”

In the past six weeks, Atlanta United has found a secret sauce. It’s about as easy to explain as the formula for Coke.

That je ne sais quoi with which they are now playing has led to (for all intents and purposes) five wins in their last six games that has Rob Valentino’s team just 180 minutes away from an MLS Cup Final appearance. Three of those five wins have come on the road, two of them were against the All-Everything Inter Miami Mess Squad and one against the-hottest-team-in-the-league-at-the-time Orlando City.

The question everyone has been wondering lately, from our Discord users, to people I meet at parties, to my parents and family members is: “How are they doing it?”

My answer is: “I don’t know.”

It’s a slightly embarrassing answer, as it’s kinda my job to know. But it’s not just me! No one does.

“I don’t know,” said Brad Guzan after the team’s series-clinching win over Miami.

“We’ve found something. It’s hard for me to describe what that is, because you can’t quite put your finger on it,” said Dax McCarty.

“I’ve been wearing different underwear and haven’t changed them since,” said Bartosz Slisz. (Okay, I made that one up.)

Yes, I’m cherry picking a couple quotes here, where in between you can hear the players talk about some intangibles like “belief” and “humility” and “working hard for each other.” But the essence of those cherry-picked quotes remains true at its core. Despite some tactical tweaks and some selection decisions that have clearly worked in the team’s favor, it’s not those things alone that took Atlanta from the precipice of having it’s worst statistical year in its history to knocking off the greatest regular-season team ever in MLS and on the verge of adding a star to their badge.

After ruminating on the question for hours on podcasts and even longer in solemn silence over the last several weeks, I still don’t have an answer. But in the process, I’ve come to realize that I’m glad I don’t.

Sport is entertainment. At its worst, it’s a chore, just as Atlanta United has been for too much of this season. But sport at its best is magic. The most enjoyable thing you can possibly see as a fan is a team do what you thought was impossible, against all odds. Understanding how it happened is not the point. When you’ve been at your happiest as a fan, you are not thinking about how it happened. You very well will think about that in the moments that follow. But as it’s happening, you are lost in the magic of sport, and how it makes us feel things that nothing else can. It’s utter euphoria.

To try to make sense of what is happening at Atlanta United right now is missing the point. Not that it’s wrong to do, but that it’s impossible to do. All we do know is that there’s magic in the air. The players feel it, the coaches feel it, the fans feel it.

To quote Michael Caine in The Prestige: “Now you’re looking for the secret... but you won’t find it. Because, of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.”

I, for one, am happy to be fooled again.