Mark down Luca Toni as the latest old guy to realize he can make a few bucks in the UAE. Like, say, Fabio Cannavaro, David Trezeguet and yours truly. And, as another old guy who has come to the UAE to extend his career, I say: “Well done, Luca!”

So, where in the UAE does Luca plan to land?

That would be at Al Nasr of Dubai. Nasr (which means “victory” in Arabic) is the oldest club in the country (founded 1945, 26 years before the UAE was a country) and is making a surprise push for the league title.

Luca Toni is an interesting choice to add, here in the transfer window.

He had a five-year run, 2005 to 2009, when he was one of the deadliest strikers in modern soccer history. He scored crazy amounts of goals: 21 goals in 36 matches with Palermo in 2004-05, 39 in 46 matches with Fiorentino in 2005-06, 39 in 46 matches with Bayern Munich in 2007-08 (go back and read that again; 39 in 46 matches!) …

The man was a goal machine.

But the machine seemed to break down. He hasn’t played a match this year for Juventus, and he scored only two goals in 15 matches last season for Juventus, and seven in 18 matches for Genoa the year before.

That’s why he was available for Nasr, certainly not an elite or well-heeled club.  In a lot of ways, the club looks like the oldest in the country, a bit run down. A little down at heel.

We at The National were all over this story. I did a comment piece on why Nasr taking the gamble on Toni is worth it — they haven’t won a league championship since 1986, but they’re only three points behind the leaders Al Ain with 10 league games still to play.

And one of our contributors, our Italy correspondent Ian Hawkey, did a piece noting that Toni was a late bloomer … and suggesting maybe he has something left in him.

Toni joins a little bit of Seria A in exile. Walter Zenga, the former Italian international keeper, is the coach, and Mark Bresciano, the Aussie of Italian heritage and a former Seria A stalwart, are already at Nasr.

I think it’s kind of fun to see a long downtrodden team make a push for the title. And I have nothing bad to say about guys coming to the desert.