Montreal Impact have won the United Soccer League's First Division, defeating the Vancouver Whitecaps in front of a packed house at Montreal's Saputo Stadium.

Despite getting off to one of their worst starts in history and sacking coach John Limniatis in May, the Impact bounced back from the dead to first qualify for the play-offs then take all before them in the finals series.

The untried Marc Dos Santos took over and led the team to lose just three games since July and go unbeaten in the play-offs.

"When I came in, I put up a poster in the locker room of us holding up the championship trophy," he said yesterday.

"I know there were probably some players who said: 'Yeah right, coach. How's that going to happen? We're doing so bad.'

"But with work they slowly started to believe. More and more they believed. And now look, a dream became reality."