Impact and TFC set for epic encounter in Montreal Mouth-watering! Epic encounter! All the ingredients! Roll out the hyperbole and cliché red carpet. In fact, better make it a blue one. After 38 matches, it all comes down to Impact vs. TFC on Sunday.

Noel Butler Analyst, TSN Radio 690 Montreal Archive

Mouth-watering! Epic encounter! All the ingredients! Roll out the hyperbole and cliché red carpet. In fact, better make it a blue one. Thirty-three matches and eight months later, it quite literally it all comes down to the final 90 minutes of the season at Stade Saputo Sunday.

While parts of England will come to an utter standstill during Sunday morning's Manchester derby – the biggest local derby in English soccer – at the very same time some 3,000 miles away the final preparations will be put in place before opening the gates a few hours later for what is the biggest ever game in the growing soccer rivalry which now greets a Montreal Impact versus Toronto FC encounter.

With sellouts very much in vogue down Stade Saputo way these days, it's not a surprise Sunday's encounter was sold out well before the Impact had even clinched their playoff berth last Saturday night.

Adding significantly to what is sure to be the loudest and most raucous crowd ever to assemble at Saputo Stadium will be the 500 plus TFC supporters who will be journeying in from Toronto.

Then factor in that colossal cast iron bell which was recently installed behind the goal in the East Stand where the Impact's recently minted Supporters Group, MTL 1642, gather. Quite coincidentally the Toronto support will congregate just up and to the right of a supporters group that has taken the atmosphere at Saputo to an entirely new level.

Then add to the rivalry fire the fuel that was Greg Vanney's, "One minute he'll play like a beast, and the next minute he'll fall over," remark about Drogba following Toronto FC's loss to the Columbus Crew at BMO Field last Saturday afternoon.

To his credit, Vanney clarified and expanded on those comments during a chat on TSN 690 Thursday evening when the Toronto FC manager described Drogba as a very intelligent player. Vanney, a formidable defender in his time, has had first-hand experience playing against the Impact's number eleven and is fully aware of the style of football Drogba plays and prefers.

This goes back to Vanney's days playing in Ligue 1 for SC Brescia, when Drogba was playing for Guingamp. Although Vanney is sure to get a frosty greeting from the Impact faithful, Drogba for his part took the comments in good spirits when he spoke with the media earlier in the week.

Much has been made of late of the so-termed Drogba Effect and how the Impact's Designated Player has galvanized his club. His larger-than-life personality has completely shook up Montreal's traditional sporting landscape.

But how about the Biello Effect?

The statistics tell us the Impact has picked up 20 of a possible 30 points under Mauro Biello's custodianship, holding their opponents scoreless in half the matches. But the numbers only tell us half the story.

More crucially, Biello has his players performing with a team concept at the very core. He has installed a belief system and a level of confidence which, for long periods, were woefully lacking and at sometimes completely absent under Frank Klopas.

The atmosphere around the club is positive, which was typified shortly after the final whistle last Saturday night at Foxboro. Nigel Reo-Coker was positively gushing over management during a live pitch-side interview. This coming from a player who can count the likes of Harry Redknapp and Alan Pardew as managers has previously played under. Reo-Coker heads a growing list of players who have been revitalized under the Impact's interim head coach.

Over my time the Impact have never had a more popular manager. It's not even close. Quiet and very unassuming, Biello goes about his work with a grace and humility sadly lacking in soccer right now. Since taking up the reigns in very late August, Biello has turned the Impact into one of the most formidable sides in the entire league. In engineering they refer to it as recalibrating.

They say timing is everything, and the Impact are playing to their strengths and displaying their best soccer of the season. The location of next week's knockout match is on the line Sunday.

A victory Sunday, coupled with a Whitecaps defeat, would see the Impact will finish the season as the best MLS club in Canada. That seemed entirely implausible when the Impact fired Klopas back on Aug. 29. At the time, the Whitecaps had an 18-point gap on a club most pundits would have predicted was going to miss the playoffs for a second straight season.

For Toronto FC, the possibility of finishing second in the conference and securing a bye week ensure that neither club will be holding back in front of a capacity crowd in Montreal. It's a crowd sure to contain a significant number of local high-profile personalities, something that must have been unimaginable to the Impact's brass back in early February Joey Saputo laid out in no uncertain terms how very bare the Impact's cupboard was.

Now brimming with pride, executive vice-president Richard Legendre disclosed this week that 2015 is a record-setting season at the box office. Not done there, the 2016 season promises to be even better. Fully 84 per cent of season ticket holders have already renewed for 2016 and their numbers will swell quite considerably with the addition of close to 2,000 new members.

With match day temperatures expected to hover around the 10-degree mark under the cover of a setting sun, the weather might be cooling but the atmosphere at Stade Saputo Sunday afternoon will be piping hot for a match that undoubtedly will be the talk of the water cooler in both Montreal and Toronto come Monday morning.

Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca

@TheSoccerNoel

Montreal Impact Vs Toronto FC is live on TSN 690 Sunday at 5pm et/2pm pt