The professional soccer league here in the United Arab Emirates should send video of tonight’s match between Al Wahda and Al Jazira to the other 10 teams in the Pro League.

This is how it should be done.

Not a huge crowd, at 9,463, but it filled more than half the stadium, and it was loud and rowdy and the atmosphere was great. These two are Abu Dhabi rivals, and their stadiums are only about two miles apart. And they also are probably the two best teams in the league, with plenty of money and coaches with international experience and expensive foreigners and competent Emiratis.

The final: Al Wahda 2, Al Jazira 2.

Said the Wahda coach: “It was one of the best games I’ve seen in the last two years in the UAE.”

I agree. Except excise the “one of” part of that sentence.

What is wrong with soccer here?

It generally is passionless. Petulant, yes, a little dirty in a shirt-tugging and flopping sort of way, but the Pro League does not produce the full-blooded, win-or-die matches between equally competent teams that you expect and get in most of Europe’s leagues.

That is what we had with Wahda and Jazira tonight. The defending champions against the champions in waiting, respectively. Fighting over bragging rights in a town that ain’t all that big.

Wahda has most of the guys who won the league a year ago, and Jazira finally seems to have figured out things after finishing third for three consecutive years and then second for the last three. Jazira, by the way, has never won the league nor the President’s Cup, which is the UAE’s answer to the FA Cup and considered the second-most important trophy in the country.

Wahda and Jazira are in the President’s Cup final, too.

The caliber of play was high, both teams played hard and the four goals were all nice.

Scoreless at halftime, and the Wahda fans were chanting in Arabic, and doing a call-and-response cheer, and beating drums and playing the bagpipes. Jazira fans had one end of the stadium nearly full and had draped it with enormous red-black-and-white Jazira banners.

Jazira, also, has not lost in the league in 14 games now. But it didn’t look good for awhile.

Wahda scored first. A little midfielder who plays on the right and usually is known for being 1) lazy and 2) indifferent, Mohammed al Shehhi, played like his career depended on these 90 minutes. He was active and moving all night and flopped only once. He cut left toward the goal, rolled the ball to Wahda’s big Brazilian forward, Fernando Baiano, who knocked it back to al Shehhi as he streaked toward the goal, and the Emirati national banged it into the lower-right corner, in the 49th minute.

At that point, Jazira’s perfect season looked in big trouble, as well as their 21-match league unbeaten streak which goes back to Febuary 14 of last year when … they lost at Wahda.

Jazira responded, however, and in the 64th minute their own muscle-bound Brazilian, Jader Volnei Spindler, who is known as “Bare,” got the ball at the top of the box, essentially threw off Wahda’s biggest and most athletic center back, and angled the ball inside the far post.

Then Jazira looked like they would take all three points. Their midfielder from Argentina (Matias Delgado) threaded the ball to their playmaker from the Ivory Coast (Ibrahim Diaky) about 10 yards outside the box, and he held it long enough to send it directly ahead to their other Brazilian forward (Ricardo Oliveira, who cost jazira $14 million in a transfer fee), who split two defenders by inches and slid into a shot that beat the keeper, and it was 2-1 in the 74th minute.

Wahda, however, took advantage of Jazira’s celebration. Before the visitors were quite set, their quick outside left back Mahmoud Khamis had carried the ball into the corner and he crossed it to Ismail Matar, probably still the best player in the UAE, and the little forward headed it home.

The rest of the game was bodies banging, and good scoring chances, guys playing hard and fans on their feet gasping and shouting, and in the 90+3rd minute Wahda’s Brazilian midfielder Magrao rocketed a shot that Jazira keeper Ali Kasheif parried, and that was it.

“We made a big mistake after our second goal,” said Jazira coach Abel Braga. “We were too happy. But it was a good result for us because both teams were playing good.”

Said Josef Hickersberger, the Austrian who coaches Wahda:  “It’s a big game for both teams and both teams played very well. It was a hard game, but it was a very fair game; I didn’t see any feet-first tackles.”

When it was over, several guys from each team exchanged jerseys which basically never happens in the Pro League. Matias Delgado swapped with Khalid Jalal; Ibrahim Diaky swapped with Mohammed al Shehhi; Ricardo Oliveira with Hugo, a fellow Brazilian.

If all UAE matches looked like this, and had that atmosphere, this could be a big sport here. Not just a TV sport. Not just an Emirati sport. A go-to-the-stadium sport, because it will be fun.

Best match I’ve seen in this country, and I was happy to be there.