Sharjah FC is one of the UAE’s most storied soccer franchises.

The club won the first domestic title in the history of the UAE, in the pre-history of 1974, and added four more after. They also have won eight President’s Cups, the second-biggest prize in domestic football, and those eight are the biggest total among UAE clubs.

And after three-plus decades of mattering — a lot — in local football, Sharjah is imploding this season, and may even be relegated.

Trying to think of a U.S. analogy for this. OK, how about: UCLA finishing last in the Pac-12 basketball standings? Or Alabama going 1-10 in football, deciding to de-emphasize the game and playing in Division II?

That’s the level of unreality that surrounds Sharjah, which has won two of its first 20 league matches and won zero of its 10 league cup matches.

I went to see them the previous night, because if things broke wrong — and pretty much everything has this season — they would be relegated with two games left in the season.

Imagine an institution so successful that it begins to assume its relevance forever. US Steel comes to mind. General Motors. Print journalism. The British Empire.

Sharjah officials and fans seemed to assume they would be important because they always had been, and that persisted even into this season, when they did just about everything wrong.

Four coaching changes. The saddest collection of Emirati talent in the country. Only two useful players from their allocation of four foreigners. No competent players in the middle of the park and a defense that concedes goals at rate of about 2.5 a game.

They have not beaten a top-flight team since December 13. That is a stretch of futility that now covers 18 matches in three competitions. That includes defeats of 5-0, 5-1 and 4-0. That includes a 3-0 defeat away to Dubai, which had not won a league home game this season. Until Sharjah showed up. And laid down.

Also included in that streak is the 2-1 home defeat I saw them absorb in their home park, which is a rundown mess in a particularly gritty part of Sharjah, which seems to be the grittiest of the seven emirates in the UAE.

I was there for their most recent win, over Al Shabab on December 13, and I thought I might help them win. Not that I really wanted them to, because Sharjah relegated is a very good story. Like the Yankees going down to Triple A.

They still will be demoted unless they catch both of the teams four points ahead of them, with only two games left. Not likely.

The queer part of this is that the Football Association may change the rules rather than let Sharjah go down to a lower level, with the semi-pro clubs in the wilds of the northern emirates.

It now seems possible, even likely, that the Pro League will expand by two teams — in large part to save Sharjah from the indignity of relegation. Which I find objectionable, and said so in this commentary for The National.

Sharjah earned this demotion. They were bad from start to finish. Across the spectrum. They were haughty, arrogant, poorly informed, poorly led. If anyone deserves a year with the minnows to get their heads straight, it is Sharjah.

In the rest of the world, you stink up the joint, they demote you. But Sharjah is considered too big to fail, apparently.

Going down might do them good. They may need the shock of playing on a high school field in a little mountain town to get them back to being a team that matters.

I suppose this shows that certain sports concepts, like “great” teams assuming their continued greatness … being shown to be badly mistaken. That trope crosses borders with ease.