If Toronto FC do snap their playoff drought this season, the eight-day stretch of August 15-22 might end up being a huge reason why.

Seven points from a possible nine saw TFC climb two places in the standings from 12th to 10th, capped on Saturday night by the club’s first-ever win in Miami with a complete team performance against the reigning champions and their squad of superstars. If Orlando hadn’t beaten Real Salt Lake 2-1 on Saturday thanks to Antoine Griezmann’s second-half brace, the Reds would be sitting in ninth, the final playoff spot, to end the weekend — something that seemed improbable just a few weeks earlier.

Eight days ago Toronto FC hadn’t won since April, a span of 12 matches, but now wins over the New England Revolution and Inter Miami — both in the Eastern Conference’s top four — have flipped that narrative on its head.

A comeback draw midweek against Charlotte FC, down two goals and one player, was another sign of the team’s character — which Robin Fraser has applauded even when times were at their toughest this season.

They aren’t in the playoffs yet, though. Toronto FC needs to take the momentum from this win and take it back to BMO Field with them. Waiting for them in Toronto are three consecutive home games, in front of crowds that are expected to be bigger with the Canadian National Exhibition taking over the city for the next few weeks.

“That’s certainly the thought, that we have to continue to build on this,” Fraser said to reporters including Waking The Red after the match. “We will continue to go one game at a time. We haven’t talked about any other team than the next team that we’re playing, so just to get ready for the next team and go in and have a good solid effort, and then we’ll go on from there.

“We talk about what does it mean for the rest of the season. The rest of the season really is the next game until that game’s coming. Then it’s the next game, so we’re just going to keep focusing on one game at a time.”

Toronto FC believe that this is how they could have been performing all season long. Whether it was the unbelievable injury bug that ripped through the team or costly mistakes in key moments that dropped points along the way, TFC had not previously played to their high standards this season.

Now that they have found some better form, they want to do what they can to hang on to it and keep climbing the Eastern Conference ladder.

“It feels great, it seems like the work that we’ve been doing over the break is starting to pay off, and guys are starting to mesh,” added Kobe Franklin. ” The squad is pretty healthy, and everybody’s competing with each other and competing for the badge on the field.

“[We’re] happy to score some goals and get some results, and this is the turning point for the rest of the season. We can’t be satisfied with just seven out of nine. We’ve got to keep going and pick up more.”

Saturday’s big win in Miami also came without three of TFC’s most important players — injured midfield duo Jonathan Osorio and Niklas Dorsch and suspended centre-back Walker Zimmerman. The entire team had to step up, with Josh Sargent and Derrick Etienne Jr finding the back of the net and Richie Laryea among the other players who put in arguably the club’s best all-around performance of the year.

When you look at who they were up against — Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Rodrigo De Paul, Casemiro, Germán Berterame, Sergio Reguilón and Dayne St. Clair — it can be easy to expect the worst, but Toronto FC outplayed them for almost the entire 90 minutes.

“For us to have success, it’s going to be about more than any one or two players,” Fraser said. “It’s going to be about the group, and I feel like it’s inevitable that you’re going to miss players from time to time, but I think what has happened over the last couple of weeks, when we’ve had so many guys get healthy, the level of training increases, the level of attention and attentiveness increases, and I think that just makes everyone better.

“There are going to be moments where we’re going to be without some of our players, and we have to be able to find ways to get results without them. So really, hats off to the group.”

Playing the game and not the occasion is also important in a game like this — with the greatest player of all time Messi on the other side, in a new stadium against the reigning MLS champions, on the road. Franklin said his side were not fazed by that at all.

“We came in here with a dog attitude,” Franklin said. “We know the squad we have and the quality we possess, and we believe that we can beat anybody on any given day. Today our team played exactly that, and we were able to take out three points. I feel like we were the better team on the day, and we deserved to win.”

As they return home, Fraser knows the work is far from over, but that his side can build on what they have done this week as they prepare to play New York City FC. A draw at Yankee Stadium kicked off this four-game unbeaten streak they now find themselves on.

“Everyone thinks offense, offense, offense, but you have to be able to stop good teams,” he said. “We do have good attacking players, and we do well in the attacking end of the field, but the key, I think, is going to be our ability to stop teams. New York City is also a very talented team and have some very good players, and we have to continue to work defensively and continue to work to be hard to break down.

“When you work extremely hard and work extremely cohesively, you can earn results, and that mentality is something that we’ve seen throughout this week certainly, and that’s really what we need to build on is the level of cohesion of which we play offensively and defensively.”

There are 13 games left for TFC, and they have a real opportunity to enter the playoffs in good form if they can scrap their way in.