You think your national soccer team has problems?

(Well, if your team is China, it does.)

The UAE fell out of contention for the 2014 World Cup today, November 11, 2011 — three-and-a-half years ahead of the 2014 World Cup. Done. Out of it. Can’t survive the second-to-last round of Asia Confederation qualifying.

That’s right. UAE fans of Fifa’s big event can now officially look forward to … 2018.

How depressing is that?

–Those kids whose moms scheduled Caesarian sections today so that their babies would be born on 11-11-11 … those kids will be in second grade when the 2018 World Cup kicks off. Yeah.

–Most of the rest of the serious soccer world will still be playing meaningful 2014 World Cup qualifiers for the next two years … and Emiratis having to hear about that day after day and month after month … well, it will be a constant source of pain and irritation. “Why aren’t we playing? Oh, yeah, we were eliminated before National Day, way back in 2011.”

–If we are brutally honest, we have to accept that a fair number of UAE soccer fans will be dead by June of 2018. Nearly seven years? A lot of us aren’t going to make it, maybe including me. Check the actuarial tables.

–By 2018, some of those “golden generation” players on the Under-23 team that the UAE is banking all its hopes on, the guys who were mostly a little too young to really help in this round of qualifying … might be too old to help the UAE qualify in 2018. Remember, soccer careers flash by in an instant, these days. You lose a step, you gain five pounds, and in modern soccer you are done. The threshold of “old” is being crossed earlier all the time, in world soccer. Unlike nearly every other human endeavor. In real life, in the developed world, “40 is the new 30” … and it really is. But in world soccer “28 is the new 35.”

How did the UAE go out so soon? Well, you lose at home to Kuwait, away to Lebanon (sparking a revival of that nation’s soccer team, by the way), can’t filch a point (home or away) against South Korea (losing 2-0 today in Dubai) … and you’ve got zero points after four games and you can’t catch South Korea (10 points) or Lebanon (seven points) with two games left. You’re done.

The UAE last played in the World Cup in 1990. The one (and still only) appearance, and the goal of a return now seems further away than it did four years ago, when at least the national team got to the final round of qualifying (before going eight games without a win).

The UAE is not alone in misery, Asian-football-style. North Korea made the 2010 World Cup but is already out. (No dinner this week for those boys.) China has to win its final two matches (and Iraq has to lose its last two) for the world’s most populous nation to get to the final 10 of Asian qualifying. Ain’t gonna happen, and China will exit the qualifying in the second-to-last round. Again. And remember, China considers soccer to be its national sport. And it sucks at it.

The UAE is not that embarrassed. Not with only 1 million citizens.

But this country considers itself a serious soccer nation. Its professional league keeps bringing in famous players (see: Asamoah Gyan) and coaches (see: Diego Maradona), and becoming more interesting.

The national team, though, is headed the other direction …

The only good news here? The UAE has a long time to figure this out and get this right. Qualifiers for 2018 should begin in 2015. Just around the corner. Or not.