Final score: Al Ahli 8, Fujairah 1.

And there is your season-opening game of the Arabian Gulf League season. One of the richest clubs in the league against one of the smallest, and 8-1 is a bit of a statistical outlier, but it’s not like anyone who knows UAE football says: “What? That’s not possible!”

The AGL is a 14-team league, which is the size the Asian Football Confederation prefers as a minimum for leagues, on this continent.

The trouble with that, here in the UAE?

The league went from 12 teams to 14, a few years ago, but the number of “big” clubs remained the same.

About seven.

In Abu Dhabi: Al Ain, Al Jazira, Al Wahda.

In DubaiL Al Wasl, Al Shabab, Al Nasr and Ahli.

The other seven teams in the league are playing to see if they can finish ahead of any of those seven. Baniyas can, from time to time. Sharjah once was able to do so.

And then there are the little guys at the bottom, who play in for clubs not as lavishly supported by local sheikhs. Dibba, Al Shaab, Emirates, Al Dhafra, Fujairah.

The odds are about 90 percent (making up a number) that the two teams relegated, end of the season, will come from those five.

Flip side? The chances of any of those five finishing in the top four are about one in a thousand. Pretty much impossible. If one of them finished fourth, someone should make a movie.

Soccer fans talk about how in the English Premier League, only four or five clubs have a real chance to win the league: Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United and maybe Liverpool. Or Tottenham.

The other 14 teams are playing mostly to stay in the Premier League, which is extremely lucrative. Maybe a couple of teams aspire to finish fifth or sixth, which puts them in the second-tier Europa League pan-Europe competition but at least gets their name out there.

The AGL doesn’t have much in common with the Premier League. But the stratification of the level of soccer, between top and bottom, is just as extreme in one league as the other.

Despite giving up eight goals, Fujairah can still aspire to finish 10th or even ninth, if Baniyas or Sharjah go sour. It wasn’t as if they went to Ahli expecting a point. They just expected to lose less heavily.

Which makes the bottom-feeders in the UAE perhaps a little sadder. If they play well enough, they stay in the top flight and can look forward to a handful of positive results and a lot of defeats next season.

At least in the Premier League, staying in the league comes with tens of millions of dollars attached.

In both cases, however, it’s nearly impossible to imagine a side outside the elite group winning a championship. Not this year. Not next year. Not this decade.

Not this century.