MADINAT ZAYED // On a warm and windy night in this oasis of humanity in the Western Region, a few miles north of the rolling dunes that mark the start of the Empty Quarter, Al Dhafra and Kalba went about the serious business of trying to save their place in the Pro League.
As the league entered its 16th round last night, the league's two smallest clubs found themselves in the relegation zone, on 12 and 11 points respectively, not without hope still of saving themselves but certainly hoping for three points against the unimpressive opposition they faced.
Dhafra and Kalba have earned their reputations as two of the yo-yo teams of the UAE. Dhafra have been up three times in the past decade. Kalba dropped out of the top flight in 2005, along with Dhafra, and did not climb back up until this season.
The fight at the bottom actually is a four-club struggle, with Al Ain (14 points) and Dubai (15) certainly not clear of danger, though it remains hard to imagine Al Ain, the nine-time champions, will not eventually climb to safety.
If the make up of the Pro League were left to marketing men, demographers and coach drivers, Dhafra and Kalba would be the teams to leave because they represent the two smallest and most distant cities in the competition.
Dhafra play their games in Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan Stadium, which features only one stand of seats on the west side of a sunken pitch in this city of 30,000. The club's players live in Abu Dhabi, 150km away, and train there, venturing into the deeper desert only on match days.
Kalba, meanwhile, is even smaller than Madinat Zayed. An enclave of Sharjah emirate located on the east coast of the country, 100km from Dubai. And when Dhafra and Kalba play, one or the other takes on the longest road trip in the UAE, approximately 350km. One way.
The competitive issues with Dhafra and Kalba are obvious. Each has competent foreigners: the forwards Boris Kabi and Abass Lawal for Dhafra, and the forwards Gregory Dufrennes and Elias de Oliveira and the midfielder Simon Feinduono for Kalba.
Each club, however, is hamstrung by a lack of elite Emirati players. Neither side contributed a single player to the age-group UAE side that won a silver medal at the Asian Games in November or to the senior national side that reached the semi-finals of the Gulf Cup in December or to the Asian Cup squad in January.
Until those clubs, and Dubai may be added, as well, have their own top-tier Emiratis, they will continue to struggle against the country's best.
The foreigners decided the match last night. Dufrennes finished the two chances that came his way, and Kabi pulled Dhafra within a goal in the 78th minute. But that was how it finished.
Kalba are up to 14 points, and are in vastly better form; they have 10 points from four matches under the Brazilian Jorvan Vieira. In the same period, Dhafra have one point and have fallen to the bottom of the table, even with their own new coach, the Syrian Mohammed Kwid.
This may not be resolved until the final weekend of the season, when Kalba are home to Al Nasr and Dhafra are home to Al Wahda. Their supporters may want to make sure they see those matches; the Pro League may not be back for a while.