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By any measure, they were two of the greatest games in the long and sometimes glorious history of sports in this city.

Toronto FC vs. Montreal Impact going head-to-head for a place in the MLS final, battling through three hours and 30 minutes of studs-up soccer with no quarter given and none asked.

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OK, so the wrong team won on aggregate score in overtime. And had the referee not overlooked Jozy Altidore’s throwdown on Victor Cabrera in the box in the first of the two-game series, the result might have been different.

But no matter what the result, sport and spectacle won these two games — big-time. In a pair of knock-down, drag-out battles, these two clubs took the game and the league to a whole new level in this country. When you’re playing soccer in front of 61,000 people, you have become a dominant sport.

In one of his giddier moments, former Expos broadcaster Rodger Brulotte predicted the Impact would eventually supplant the Canadiens as Montreal’s No. 1 team. That isn’t going to happen unless the planet overheats to the point it’s no longer possible to make ice — but the soccer club has left the CFL Alouettes in its wake in the drive to be No. 2.