I have been watching soccer/football for six years, here in the UAE. Seen lots and lots of matches.

But very few big crowds. And very little passion.

That changed tonight. Perhaps because the teams involved were imported from Egypt.

Al Ahly and Zamalek, the two biggest and most successful clubs in Egypt, played the country’s season-opening match at the marvelous new Hazza bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain tonight … and it produced a near-capacity crowd of people who were, basically, going nuts for 100 minutes.

Why 100 minutes? Because the game was halted for 10 minutes in the second half when players began scuffling, and overwrought random people came off the benches to join the scrap, and officials escorted the Italian officials off the pitch for 10 minutes.

The whole of the match (won 3-2 by Ahly) was one long festival of excitement, exhilaration, shattering disappointment, sweet victory.

And the Emiratis at the match, as reporters or TV people, seemed almost amused at the concept, as well as vaguely jealous. “Look, someone who cares about their domestic league. How quaint … how fun.”

Our favorite Emirati sports correspondent, Omar Al Raisi, covered the match for The National, and he produced a piece that reflects the near-wonder felt by locals watching Egyptian fans lose their minds over a soccer game.

Here is the story Omar filed, on deadline, from Al Ain.

He is not exaggerating anything here. I watched it on live TV, and the stadium was a heaving cauldron of energy. You could feel it right through the TV screen.

Egyptians are huge soccer fans, but the game there has been a complete mess since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

A key component in that overthrow was the “ultras” attached to the two sides in tonight’s Egyptian Super Cup — Ahly and Zamalek, whose hard-core fans took credit for helping organize street protests, skills learned during their days of making trouble at soccer matches.

Soccer, then, has been a political football in Egypt for years, and the league has gone on with fits and starts the past few years, usually in empty stadiums.

For the first time, Egypt took its Super Cup out of the country, handing it over the UAE, strong supporters of General Sisi, the army man who overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood-led movement. (And the ultras made no appearance, that we could see. These were local Egyptians, many of them watching in family units.)

So, football has been rare to see, and the Egyptians living in the UAE, numbered at about 300,000, turned in in big numbers, nearly filling the Hazza bin Zayed venue (the best in the country), to the tune of about 25,000 people …

Who emoted like mad for the whole of the match. Camera shots of fans were priceless. Weeping. Jumping for joy. Fathers practically throwing their children in the air in celebration.

Our correspondent said he could not remember the last time he had been in a stadium filled with so much noise. And he loved it.

I wonder if Emiratis will take anything from this … the pure passion of the Egyptian fans. Their national team could use the help, in the coming months, of a supporting Emirati crowd at World Cup qualifying matches.

We shall see.

But this one, even if it is a one-off was a delight.