It really is a curious thing, the shootout.

In many ways it is an independent event from what went on for the previous two hours, at a soccer game. Same guys participating, same ball, same concept of trying to put the ball in the net and the goalkeeper trying to parry it.

But it is so different in so many ways. Coming at the end of two hours, for most players, of exertion. With the notion of shifting from what is fun and almost instinctive, when shooting during the run of game, to the cold-blooded parade of players teeing up the ball from 11 yards out, some of them who may not have taken a penalty in a match for months or years. While everyone stares.

We had what I thought was a riveting shootout at the end of a President’s Cup match tonight, involving some of the best-known players in the UAE, a shootout that eventually sucked into its vortex all 22 players on the pitch. Not 21, not 23. Exactly 22. They needed that many for the match to end 9-8.

So, the game pitted Al Ain, the two-time defending league champions, against Al Wasl, the league’s “team of the century” as adjudged by Fifa — referring to the 20th century. Prominent clubs, one from Abu Dhabi, the other from Dubai.

Wasl hasn’t done much lately, aside from plow through coaches. The club won the league and President’s Cup double in 2007, but no domestic trophies since, and that includes the tumultuous season, 2011-12, in which Diego Maradona was the coach.

Wasl’s entire board resigned last week, which happens fairly regularly; I think we are going to be on my third Wasl board since arriving in the country in late 2009.

However, Wasl has a few competent players, and their coach now is Hector Cuper, an Argentine and formerly coach of Valencia and Inter Milan. He took the former to two Champions League finals (losing both, to Real Madrid in 2000 and to Bayern Munich, via shootout, in 2001). A serious coach, then.

Wasl led 2-0 in the first half. Big upset in the making. Al Ain got even early in the second on a penalty by Asamoah Gyan, who Americans may remember as the guy who scored the decisive goal against the U.S. in extra time in the last 16 at the 2010 World Cup.

Wasl then bunkered in, the 30 minutes of extra time were largely uneventful, and they went to “the lottery” of the shootout — which some studies seem to suggest is not the roulette wheel of sport that some suggest.

The key points.

1. Al Ain’s first two shooters missed. And these were not just regular guys. The first was Alex Brosque, competent forward and occasional Australia international, and the second was Omar Abdulrahman, playmaking midfielder and the best (and most highly skilled) player in the UAE national side. Both guys’ shots were blocked by Wasl keeper Rashid Ali. Wasl made its first two, and at that point, it’s pretty much academic right?

When shooting first, who comes back from 2-0 down? So, Al Ain out of the quarterfinals. Hmm. What does that mean for the coach, Quique Sanchez Flores?

2. Gyan scored for Al Ain. A patch on the bleeding.

3. Wasl missed its next two PKs. From two players I would have thought to be their best takers. Their first Mariano Donda, a veteran Argentina midfielder, clutch guy, cool customer … and he skied the ball high over the right side of the net. Just awful. Next up, after Al Ain got to 2-2 through Mirel Radoi, the Romanian midfielder, was Andre Senghor, an angular Senegalese who has been one of the country’s top scorers for the past four years. One of those guys who always wants to take every shot. But he hit a soft ball that Khaled Essa, the Al Ain keeper easily stopped.

Whole new ballgame — 2-2, Al Ain shooting again.

3. Then came the parade of mediocrities. Defenders who rarely score, part-timers and subs the coaches sent out to fill the Nos 5-10 positions in the progression. None of whom had been particularly counted on. All of them scored.

That’s 12 straight PKs, successfully taken. What?

At this point I’m wondering if the goalkeepers somehow lost their early exuberance or confidence. They guessed wrong, they weren’t decisive. They were beaten high and low, left and right and middle.

Meantime, you have to look at the Wasl guys — because Wasl kept having to make the game-extending kicks — and wonder which one of those guys, whose darkest nightmares did not include them taking a PK against Al Ain with the game on the line, would send a shot into the seats, or take a divot like Roberto Baggio at the 1994 World Cup.

But none of them missed. None came close to missing. Was it a sense of “no pressure, not really” because “I’m just a central defender, for goodness sakes!”

(And a sidebar; which of the 10 field players would be the last to shoot? Answer? Mohammed Ahmed, an outside back for Al Ain who also is a national team stalwart; and for Wasl some random kid.)

Now, we’re down to the keepers; some teams use their keepers as shooters earlier in the rotation. These did not. No faith? No practice?

4. Al Ain’s goalie scored. Wasl’s did not.

Al Ain’s keeper is the kid named Khaled Essa, formerly of Al Jazira and generally the national team’s No. 2 keeper. I know him a little from Jazira. He’s a good athlete but small for a keeper, and I figured Sanchez Flores must know something (not good) about him as a shooter that I did not. As simple, maybe, as “he never practices taking shots”.

His shot was a little strange. He must have hit the ball a fraction too high, because it bounced about two yards from the spot, and popped up a little. But it had some pace to it, and as Rashid Ali dove to his right, he got a piece of it, but not enough to keep it out of the net. Wasl supporters groaned. (Lots of suffering in the stands, now that I think of it.)

That brought up Rashid Ali, a sort of journeyman keeper, who did make those two stops early in the shootout, but that was a long time ago, and now he’s on the other side of the process. Taking a PK while wearing those giant Mickey Mouse gloves.

His shot, sort of tentative, rolled a couple inches wide of the goal.

Game over, three hours after it started. Al Ain celebrating. Wasl shattered.

Did the keeper’s shaky effort come from a lack of practice? Did he not notice that the first rule of PKs is to make sure you’re on frame? Did he just seize up?

So, the final: 2-2 with Al Ain winning the shootout 9-8.

All those subplots. Did the four hardened vets who missed overthink it? Were they trying to be too fine? Are they so well known that the Wasl goalkeeper knew their tendencies? (Or did some of the “shootout theories”, noted in the link above, come into play — like, “guys who have played 120 minutes or more likely to miss”.)

Why did the keepers seem to be bystanders for 12 consecutive kicks? Did they lose an edge there for a bit? Were they out of ideas? Did the players watching the early kicks see something in the keepers that tipped off their dives?

And how about the guys who basically never take PKs … coming through? Man after man, some of them national team players, for Al Ain, but most of Wasl’s guys were pretty thoroughly anonymous.

And the goalkeepers as shooters. Something they dreaded? Something they embraced?

It was great fun. It was a mind game as well as an athletic one, and parsing games is half the fun for fans and sports writers.