And this does not involve soccer.

I never thought I would encounter, in the UAE, anything even vaguely similar to the “prep football Friday nights” all sports journalists in the States know.

For one, “football” here involves a round ball and, two, American football is rarely played here. As of about three years ago, it had never been formally played here. Ever.

Tonight, however, we not only had a real, live American football game involving two competent teams … we had a rain/lightning delay, a see-saw game and a finish that took us right up to deadline, along with all the tropes of a rush-to-press football Friday in Texas or California or Georgia or Florida.

That would include … trying to keep our own statistics … writing “running” at halftime … an unexpected delay via downpour, in Dubai (rather than lights failing, or a homecoming droning on) … the reporter’s mad dash from the press box to the field to get a handful of quotes … and the guys back in the office demanding copy immediately “or we’re gonna be late” … finally getting the story, one hurried edit that leaves an editor thinking “gee, I hope I didn’t miss something important” … two photos slapped into the section (one on the cover, one inside) … and, hell, being late after all.

But it was fun.

And about the game.

A few years ago, a German coach and a former Canadian Football League player decided there was interest in the UAE in the American game. That led to a “national team” which played a game or two and, then, late in 2012, to the Emirates American Football League made up of four teams, one in Abu Dhabi, one in Al Ain and two in Dubai.

(They play each other twice, and then come the playoffs, first versus fourth, second versus third, and the survivors for the championship. The season runs from November till March, to avoid the local heat, and the level of play is probably about NCAA Division III level.)

The final game of that season was the Desert Bowl (of course), in which the Abu Dhabi Wildcats (I have the T-shirt in the black-and-gold colors) defeated the Dubai Stallions 21-12.

The league’s second season ended tonight, and it went down to the wire before Abu Dhabi defeated the previously unbeaten (6-0-1) Stallions 14-13 at a real stadium (I mentioned the press box) at Dubai Sports City.

So, 7-0 Abu Dhabi at half, a tie at 7-7 in the third quarter, Dubai facing third-and-goal from the 19 in the fourth quarter (following the 20-minute rain delay when one of those weird Gulf squalls descended on the stadium and drenched everyone) and getting a touchdown pass by their Serbian quarterback (who had seen the NFL on TV and decided he would like to play the game) … and then the 58-yard scoring run by the marvelously named Vivaldi Tulysse, who is from Florida, followed by the 34-yard game-winning PAT on a wet field by a Scottish guy named David Brown, who had never played the game till this year (but almost certainly knows about kicking wet balls, considering he played rugby in Scotland).

And the game ended with Abu Dhabi backed up on their own 2, when we were thinking a safety was absolutely possible, at least until the Dubai team jumped offside, giving the Wildcats the space to take a knee and kill the clock.

So, here is the game story, a bang-bang thing, which I edited, so if you see anything in there that isn’t right, that’s my fault.

And here is a sort of “optional” second-day version of the story, written after the game, and with some insights from Tulysse, the game’s MVP.

But wait! There’s more!

Our department’s web specialist also was at the game, and live-blogged it, and quite well, too. (Has to be the first live-blogged American football game played in the Middle East.)

And, our photographer who survived the rainstorm delivered enough shots to produce a photo gallery, which you can see here.

(One of his photos is at the top of this post, and shows the volume of rain that came down just before the game was stopped for 20 minutes, and shows the Dubai quarterback recovering his own fumble.)

It was fun. All of it.

And now we will get back to soccer, cricket, rugby and Formula One.