Maybe it’s Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium. I’ve seen quite a bit of wacky stuff go down there.

Two riveting matches in a week. The aforementioned Jazira 5, Dhafra 3 in the Pro League, and now an Etisalat Cup final between Al Shabab and Al Ain that featured three goals from the 86th minute or later.

Which makes me begin to wonder if the more fun leagues are those without quite as many big-brain coaches who choke the life out of games.

This one had it all. With the big reward at the end … unless you are an Al Ain fan.

Of the four domestic competitions in the UAE, the Etisalat Cup probably ranks fourth. Winning the league and the President’s Cup are a close 1-2. Something called the Super Cup, which pits the winners of the league and President’s Cup from the previous season in a sort of “OK, we’re back” opener in August is probably third.

And the Etisalat Cup is fourth. It’s the Carling Cup of the UAE.

But a trophy is a trophy, especially when you’re one of these two teams and in no position to win another this season.

Here is the game story (or match report, as the Brits call them) I did for The National last night …

This game was an example of the rare circumstance when events change so rapidly that the journo up in the press box hardly has time to be exasperated.  A blurted obscenity, maybe, but the last three goals came so quickly I didn’t really have time to tear up my story three times.

The silliest thing of the evening, from the journalism side of things, was writing 300 words at halftime, of which about 50 were in the final product — and only because I ran out of time to rewrite the whole piece. Almost nothing that happened in the first hour meant anything.

OK, the recap:

1-0 Al Ain. One of Shabab’s central defenders, in a massive gaffe, attempted to play an Al Ain cross while 1) facing his own net, 2) with the outside of his right foot about four feet off the ground and 3) with no one from Al Ain on the other side of him. It was a cross to nowhere, but Esam Dhahi sent it into his own net … and a side note: his partner in the middle of the back four, Walid Abbas, was guilty of two own goals against the national team at the Asian Cup. Maybe it’s in the water up there at Shabab.

1-1. Jociel Ferreira, the flamboyant Brazilian better known as Ciel, scored in the 70th minute. As crazy as things would get later, this was the goal that must disturbed me because I was about 80 percent done with a story on how Al Ain had managed to win a trophy despite a season that otherwise sucked. And they still are at risk of relegation. This came in the 70th minute when I was nearly done with an “Al Ain wins 1-0” story. Did I mention that?

2-1 Shabab. In the 86th minute … I was OK with this because even as late as it was, it meant we were going to have a winner in regulation. Going an extra 30 minutes would destroy us because we have early deadlines on Friday, and we had three stories to file. (A Yank expat, working as a freelancer, was with me.) Goal by Julio Cesar on a pass from fellow Brazilian Ciel.

2-2. Goal by Al Ain in the 90+1st minute. Never expected this one. Al Ain had played 86 minutes without a forward, an innovative 4-2-4-0 formation that produced about zero scoring chances, as you might expect. The own goal had given them a shot at winning with this truly hopeless/negative formation (did the Al Ain coach plan on it?). But when Shabab went ahead, the Al Ain coach, Alexandre Gallo, finally sent on a real striker, a tall 19-year-old kid from Ivory Coast named Juma Saeed, and he just overpowered a Shabab defender in the box and banged in a shot from about 10 yards about two minutes after he got into the game. This one stunned me. “So we are going the extra 30 minutes! Crap!”

3-2 Shabab. I had hardly had time to process a plan for how we would handle our copy being backed up at least 30 minutes, or more if it went to a shootout … when Ciel scored again. Both sides were gassed; it’s late April, and temps are up, and everyone had been running hard and man-marking had gotten sloppy. Ciel took the ball across the edge of the box and two Al Ain defenders couldn’t keep up mostly because they seemed exhausted, and just as I announced to my colleague “this is gonna be a goal” Ciel put one to the left of the keeper.

It was a madcap seven minutes. Three goals. A lead, a tie, a winner … fans from both sides (about 98 percent of whom were Emirati males in khandouras) shouting … the Al Ain fans, who made up about 80 percent of the crowd (best fans in the UAE) falling silent … going nuts … falling silent …

Both sides reacted as if they had won (or lost) something truly important. Which is always nice to see. The Shabab guys formed a circle and danced on the field. A couple of the Al Ain guys were in tears.

I wrote a semi-coherent game story, then hustled downstairs to the interview room to get a reaction story from the Shabab coach, which you can see here, in which he talks about his club signing this Ciel character, who has been known for being a bad egg and an alcoholic at previous stops, according to this story by my colleague Ahmed Rizvi. Anyway, Shabab was nothing special till he joined, and now they are 8-3-2 (wins/draws/defeats) since he arrived and have won a trophy. Key guy to their side. Can’t say I have any idea where he will be a year from now, but he’s had a heck of a four months.

Anyway, two games in five days at MBZ, and they both were nuts. It’s the best stadium in the country … in more ways than one.