Basically, this could not happen. The best football club in the UAE, probably one of the best in all of Asia, at home, against the worst club in the Pro League, a team playing in the top flight for the first time in its obscure history, and based in a small town in the near-empty northeast of the country.

Al Ain, the defending champions, had lost exactly once in 24 matches across three competitions this season. Dibba Al Fujairah, meanwhile, had won four of 22 matches this season, their first playing with the big clubs.

Yet there it was, Dibba 1, Al Ain 0 after 96 minutes. I would have had trouble believing it if I had not been watching on TV.

Al Ain got off to a slow start. Which perhaps is understandable. At home, against the 14th-place club in a 14-team league? Al Ain’s players would not be human if they didn’t think they could cruise a bit on this one. Especially with a nine-point lead over the second-place side with 11 matches to play, and especially with a 2013 Asian Champions League opening match with the Saudi side Al Hilal, coming up six days later.

They had won their previous five league matches by a 14-2 aggregate score. In the league season, they had outscored the opposition 56-16, and 53-10 when a weird, 6-3 opening-night loss to Al Ahli is removed.

Dibba, meanwhile, had been outscored 37-15, and owned one league victory over a club that might be described as “big” — Al Wasl, which since have melted down utterly. They are the kind of UAE club at which their Emirati players almost certainly have day jobs. And their foreigners are obscure even in their home countries.

Yet, and all …

For the first half hour, Al Ain looked a bit sleepy — a late afternoon kickoff, their playmaker Omar Abdulrahman being rested, and it remained 0-0. But that couldn’t last.

It didn’t. In the 32nd minute, the normally dependable Romanian midfielder Mirel Radoi sent an angled back pass to the normally dependable central defender Ismail Ahmed, who may not have seen Dibba’s tiny Brazilian midfielder Luiz Fernando bearing down on him.

Ahmed’s generic pass forward came off his foot at an angle, and it struck Luiz Fernando on the upper arm. It was not a handball because the Dibba player had not reached for the ball; his arm was against his body.

The ball ricocheted towards the Al Ain goal, with Luiz Fernando chasing it. He took a touch or two, confronted the Al Ain keeper Dawoud Sulaiman as he came off his line, and hit a low, hard shot to the left of the keeper — who might have stopped it if he were truly competent, and he is not — and it rolled into the net.

Certainly, that would be the only highlight of the day for Dibba.

But no. They got to halftime with their 1-0 lead. In the second half, they were intent to keep it. They kept the defense packed in. They never had the ball, but no matter. Al Ain had 70 percent of the ball and nearly 30 “attacks” to Dibba’s 10. But the scoreboard was still 1-0.

Once, Asamoah Gyan, Al Ain’s Ghana forward, banged the ball of the post, and the rebound was cleared by a defender. Al Ain spent nearly the whole of the second half trying to negotiate a thicket of defenders, and as it began to dawn on them (and their horrified fabs) that they could lose at home to Dibba, they seemed to get reckless and sloppy in the attack.

Even the introduction of Omar Abdulrahman, the star midfielder, made little difference. Even six minutes of added time did not help.

“It was one of those days when it just wouldn’t go in,” said Alex Brosque, Al Ain’s Australian forward, which explains it as much as anything.  As well as the fluke play that deflected off the 5-foot-7 Dibba guy’s arm, and led to the one goal.

And there it was, the final score that dumbfounded anyone who knows UAE football.

Actually, it makes the league a bit more fun, at least for a week. Al Ain next plays Al Jazira, the second-place side, and if Jazira can win Al Ain’s lead suddenly will be three points and open up the possibility of a competitive stretch run. And Dibba’s victory lifted them into a three-way tie on 10 points, with two teams to be relegated — which also could be good fun.

Not that we expected it.