Noted a week or so ago:

Too much good sports stuff this week. Specifically, today.

Actually, we had even more good stuff than I presented.

Add to the list:

–Roger Federer playing for the only trophy he hasn’t won — the Davis Cup.

–Manny Pacquiao, defending his WBO welterweight title … and the UAE is home to 500,000 Filipinos.

–And the UAE national football team in the semifinals of the Gulf Cup of Nations. Hoped that would happen, didn’t know that it did until a few days ago.

When it was over, that last bit was the best.

The UAE playing big bad Saudi, population 22 million to the UAE’s 1 million. Citizens, that is.

Saudi went up 2-0 with a good game plan — beat up Omar Abdulrahman, break down the Omar-centric UAE side, take advantage of sloppy defending in the back.

The scene at the stadium, in Riyadh, was a little weird. It actually rained in Riyadh, and a bad field got even worse — lumpy, soggy, uneven, and the UAE guys didn’t like — playing, as they do, on the usually perfect pitches of their homeland.

The rain also kept fans from the King Fahd International Stadium, capacity 65,000, until just before kickoff, when about 35,000 fans seemed to materialize out of nowhere. About 3,000 of them were UAE fans, who had gone over in several planes, at no charge.

So, 2-0 Saudi, and at halftime I was complaining about how soft the UAE side is — this after Omar Abdulrahman had been driven off the pitch with an injury, after Saudi’s thuggish players kept going at his legs.

Then the UAE got two goals, both by Ahmed Khalil, the erratic forward we had been trashing (well, me, especially, even though I had seen him score twice, in person, to overcome a 2-0 deficit against Uzbekistan in Tashkent) … and there was cheering in the sports department, because Saudi had turned out to be a graceless, unlikeable opponent.

Instead of winning in a shootout or in overtime, Saudi had enough gumption to interrupt the UAE momentum and scored the winner with about 10 minutes left.

So, 3-2, a very nice match, especially for this region, where 0-0 is a common Gulf Cup score. And here is a photo gallery.

Rest of the stuff?

The big event, globally, was the final race of the Formula One season. More people around the planet were aware of this than anything else that happened.

And the race was seriously dull. Lewis Hamilton passed teammate Nico Rosberg into the first corner, and he drove away to win. And secure the season championship.

Zzzzz.

But that’s F1.

Henrik Stenson won the DP World Championship golf tournament. Had a nice shot on the 17th hole. Rory McIlroy, world No. 1, almost won.

The soccer game was the big event, and we kept the paper open till 1:15 a.m. to get it in, filed for The National from Riyadh by our own Ali Khaled. Now it is Saudi and Qatar for the Gulf Cup title.

After this? It’s all downhill in sports … maybe forever, in the UAE.