Big stir here, over the new soccer stadium in Al Ain. A three-day festival, a lot of pomp and ceremony, lots of conversation about how spectacular the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium is.

And it is. It’s quite nice. Fairly striking, from the outside (artist’s rendering, above), when it is lit up with Al Ain’s predominant color, purple.

And in the UAE, this stadium immediately enters a special niche, previously unfilled.

To wit:

Big enough to be special … small enough to fill.

For such a wealthy country, which also is thoroughly soccer mad, the UAE’s soccer stadiums previously fell into one of the two ends of the stadium spectrum, neither of them particularly flattering.

1. The big and unwieldy. This applies to the only two large stadiums in the country, the one at Zayed Sports City Stadium, on the southern part of Abu Dhabi island, and the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium, where Al Jazira plays, about two long blocks from where The National is put together every day. (Dubai does not have a big soccer stadium; never has. The Sevens rugby stadium is rarely used for soccer, and then it doesn’t work well.)

Zayed Sports City Stadium was finished in 1979, and it feels every year of its age. The weather here is very hard on structures, and the Sports City Stadium (where I have covered maybe a dozen games) feels rather like it is falling to pieces. It also is big, seating around 45,000. Also, it has not been used for a game in at least a year, and probably more like two.

The Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium was renovated and enlarged about a decade ago, and also holds more than 40,000. It is in better shape, as a physical plant, but the construction there is oddly vertical, and the premises traps heat inside the stadium — in an unpleasant way.

And, in both cases, 40,000 is more seats than you need for a soccer game here, about 364 days a year. They might be able to get something over 30,000 for, say, the President’s Cup final. Or a Fifa Club World Cup final (2009, 2010). Which, otherwise, leads to the classic problem: 10,000 people inside a big stadium make it look like an empty stadium.

The other sort of stadium here was …

–Small and old and single-deck. This covers nearly every club team in the country, even the “big” clubs like Al Ahli and Al Wasl and Al Nasr and Al Wahda. Their stadiums went up a long time ago and have been updated little or not at all, and are hardly more sophisticated than an American high school football stadium, with the same lack of amenities.

Al Ain’s Hazza bin Zayed Stadium fills the void between those two extremes, which will make it very handy here. You can purchase food and drink in there. It has women’s toilets and parking. The grounds are immaculate. It is state of the art.

And Emirati football planners know they have a shot at filling that stadium, which seats 25,000, if a game is big enough. Like, say, a key World Cup qualifying match — it seems likely the national team will play there. A lot. Or Al Ain in the Asian Champions League, or meeting a key rival.

OK, yes, new soccer stadiums are not a big deal in, say North America, where a dozen soccer-specific stadiums have been opened since 1999, including four since 2010.

Here is the list of every stadium in Major League Soccer. My sense is that the Red Bull Arena might be the closest to Hazza bin Zayed, complete with the roof that protects fans from the elements and a visually arresting exterior. And size, too.

I’m just going to guess the Al Ain stadium might have cost about as much as the Red Bull Arena, too — about $200 million. (No numbers on cost have been issued here, or even guessed at.)

So, from the perspective of Major League Soccer: “You opened up a stadium that seats 25,000? Good for you … but no biggie.”

But from the perspective of the UAE, this is not just a new stadium, it is special and fills a void.

And, by the way, in the first game played there, Al Dhafra, which is Abu Dhabi emirate’s smallest club, ruined the party by scoring a late goal to forge a 1-1 tie tonight. But 15,000 people were there, and that’s a big crowd in a country this small.

Also it felt like a big crowd. Which is the point.