The UAE is having a hard time in soccer/football. Which wouldn’t be as big an issue if the game weren’t the national sport.

The senior team is suffering through its most difficult and disappointing World Cup qualifying, with five defeats in five matches, and was eliminated before the final round of Brazil 2014 qualifying. The kind of thing that would happen to, say, St. Kitts or Zimbabwe or San Marino.

The UAE Football Association, and Emirati fans, have hung all their hopes on the Olympic (under 23) team, but now those guys are stumbling, too. They have been angling to win their group and gain direct entry into the London 2012 Olympics — which would be the greatest accomplishment by a UAE team since playing in the 1990 World Cup. But another scoreless draw tonight, this one at home, is not a good sign.

Potential relief for the country’s soccer problems isn’t far off or distant. It could be right here, inside the UAE’s borders.

The expats.

Foreigners make up 85 percent of the country’s population but never, ever are naturalized to play for the UAE.

Things may be about to change.

Sharjah Sports Club, one of the domestic league’s core sides, has broken with tradition by creating a 15-and-under team mostly for expats. The team is called Sharjah Schoolboys, and I wrote about its launch for the Thursday paper.

This is a big issue here, and a potentially delicate one.

By Fifa rules, a player is allowed to play for a national team after he has lived in that country for five years. The “residency rule”.

However, the UAE to my knowledge has never naturalized any of the many kids who grow up here (some who are born here) who might be quite competent at the game.

Instead, the best of those players go back to their country of origin, generally, to try to further their careers. Just in the two-plus years I’ve been here, several English and Scottish kids have gone home to join club academies.

Also, the UAE has a considerable population of Arab expats, and most of them come from serious soccer areas too, like Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

A league source told me that on any given night a person could go to the Dubai Sevens fields and see games involving community teams in which at least one guy (and probably more) have the talent to play for one of the country’s professional clubs. Certainly in their academy, and perhaps in their first team.

The UAE has resisted the idea of naturalizing any of them. Though it tried to get a rule change passed by FIFA last summer that would have lowered the residency requirements to three years, from five. That, however, pretty clearly was aimed at picking off guys already in their primes and playing in the domestic league.

Where the UAE could make up some ground is at the youth level, and then right in to the professional clubs and national teams. Those kids are here right now. They don’t require salaries. They know the country because most of them grew up here.

In much of the world, soccer administrators pay close attention to kids who might be eligible to play for them. The United States certainly has no qualms about giving passports to guys with American parentage who don’t even speak English. About half the 1994 World Cup team was made up of guys like that.

Naturalization is a touchy issue here. I get that. Only 1 million citizens and, like, say, Switzerland, things are pretty good for the citizens and they resist adding to their number.

However, it is beginning to look as if the UAE’s eternal dream of achieving something on the world stage is just not going to happen with the limited talent among citizens.

Sharjah’s team could be a step toward jump-starting the process. More likely, no other clubs will follow, and Sharjah will get tired of paying for uniforms and coaching kids who will never play for them … and the only expats at any of the clubs will be the high-salary South Americans they bring in, a year at a time, to score for them.

The UAE has a choice. Keep losing with citizens, or see if the help of an expat or three could make a difference.