Five years ago I might have watched consecutive baseball games on television. Or consecutive basketball games.Today and yesterday … I watched consecutive soccer games, on TV. Involving UAE teams. Teams I didn’t know existed three years ago.

It’s my job. More or less. I wasn’t covering any of these games. But even if I’m not there, I want to know what happens. Especially when the UAE teams are playing in the Asian Champions League. Which, yes, is the same concept as the (Uefa) Champions League — the best clubs in Asia, 32 of them, in a tournament that runs most of the year.

This is way “inside UAE football”, but I’m going to do little recaps on the four games I watched, monopolizing the TV in the apartment for nine hours (pre-game shows, too, all in Arabic!) over the course of consecutive evenings. I will tell you a little of the back story to the four UAE clubs involved. C’mon, give it a look.

Game 1, Tuesday: Al Jazira of Abu Dhabi at Esteghlal of Iran.

Game is in Tehran, and UAE teams have a lot of trouble competing in Iran, and especially in Tehran, where the two big clubs (Esteghlal and Persepolis) play in the 100,000-capacity Azadi Stadium and get big crowds. (In this case, 36,735, which will be the largest crowd Jazira will play in front of this year, unless they reach the President’s Cup final.)

Jazira won the UAE Pro League last year, as well as the Cup, and their home stadium is about 300 yards from where I live. I’ve covered these guys a lot.

However, their Champions League campaign last year was a disaster. particularly the game in Iran against Sepahan, another strong club, albeit in Isfahan. Sepahan crushed Jazira 5-1. It was a national embarrassment for UAE football.

A few weeks ago, in the first game involving a UAE team in Iran for the 2012 tournament, Al Shabab of Dubai went over to Tehran to play Persepolis, and was utterly trashed, 6-1. So.

Jazira, however, seemed quite lively from the start. They were missing one of their four foreigners, the Australian defender Lucas Neill, who was suspended for the game, but that may not have been bad because Jazira’s defense has been lousy.

Juma Abdullah, a tall central defender who is good on restarts, headed in a goal in the first half, and bang! Jazira was going to compete. Jazira led until the second half, when Esteghlal tied, and the energy in the stadium seemed as if it would carry the home team to victory, but they pressed a little too hard, and in the 72nd minute, Jazira’s two Brazilians linked up on a very nice counter-attack goal, Ricardo Oliveira (perhaps the best athlete in the UAE) linking up with Jader Volnei “Bare” Spindler, (perhaps the strongest player in the league), who finished from 10 yards, and it was 2-1.

Jazira hung on, and their win was the first in Iran by a UAE team in a Champions League game. UAE clubs had been 0-9-10 (win-draw-loss) in Iran. Also, Esteghlal had never lost a Champions League home game. So, a big deal. Jazira has nine points after three games, in Group A, and seems sure to be the first UAE team to survive group play since 2007.

Second game: Al Nasr of Dubai home to the Saudi club Al Ahli. Not to be confused with the UAE club Al Ahli. (Or the Egyptian team Al Ahly which is probably the best club in Africa.

Nasr is the oldest club in the UAE, going back to 1945, meaning they predate the founding of the UAE by 26 years. That makes them the UAE equivalent of the Cincinnati Reds (founded 1869).

Nasr had some good times, back in the day, but that day was mostly three decades ago. They haven’t won the league since 1986, their home field looks kinda rundown and battered, but by finishing third in the league last season they got into the Champions League for the first time.

Their coach is Walter Zenga, former Italy and Inter Milan great, and he had them in contention for the league title about a month ago, and they signed Luca Toni, onetime scoring machine for Fiorentina and Bayern Munich, adding him to Mark Bresciano, another former Seria A star, and things looked good. Then Nasr sagged, and now it seems as if they may have given up, even with their Champions League victory two weeks ago over Qatar’s new champion Lekhwiya.

They played the Saudis with only one foreigner, the Ivorian striker Amara Diane, and playing an Asian Champions League match with only one expat is like going to a gunfight with a knife. Diane scored a goal, but Toni was not in the stadium (rumors had him back in Italy perhaps to have an injury looked at, or maybe because the UAE no longer amuses him), and Ahli won 2-1, which may not matter all that much to Walter Zenga, who seems to think he is going to get the Inter job.

Day 2.

Early game, Al Shabab of Dubai home to Al Hilal of Saudi. Shabab also missing two expats, the Chilean midfielder Carlos Villanueva, who had his knee blown out last week courtesy of a cheapshot from the Al Wasl team (the one coached by Diego Maradona), and the Uzbek mid Azizbek Haydarov, also injured.

Shabab still has Ciel, however, a sometimes flaky (and perhaps tipsy, in bygone days) winger who has been really good for Shabab, and he scored a very nice goal, and it was 1-0 at the half. Sadly, Al Hilal got one in the second half, and Shabab has two points from three games, but it still not out of it in Group D, because the top two go to the round of 16.

Final game: Baniyas of Abu Dhabi at Ittihad of Saudi, in Jeddah.

Baniyas is an interesting team, located on the outskirts of the capital, where the Emiratis live, a second-division club for most of its existence, but it broke back into the UAE top flight for the 2009/10 season and stayed up, and finished second last season, and it has a reputation for having a lot of the good young Olympic team players on its roster. Baniyas took a calculated risk, before the season, by signing David Trezeguet, the former France international and World Cup winner, a signing that got a lot of attention … but it was a disaster, and he left before scoring a goal. The club also lost a key winger, Theyab Awana, he of back-heel penalty fame/infamy, who died in a car crash, and they have not recovered, in the league.

They did, however, win their Champions League opener, against Al Arabi (no wiki page) of Bahrain, and tie away to Pakhtakor of Uzbekistan, and they have a real chance to advance.

It was always going to be tough to win in Jeddah, however, where Ittihad gets big crowds (11,495 in this case, which is a lot in the Gulf), and Baniyas was missing the Olympic team playmaker Amer Abdulrahman, and Ittihad dominated the game and got a late PK and won 1-0. Baniyas, however, are not out of it in Group B.

I suppose the point of all this was … it doesn’t take long to get to know the teams and the players in someone else’s universe, and once you know a bit about the back stories, and the history, and the intrigue, and who’s who among the expats cycling through, and which Emiratis are the ones who matter …

And the whole thing interests me. Fascinates me. To the point that I imagine I will check in on the UAE Pro League years after I have left the country. “Hmmm, Nasr finally won the league … Jazira won the Champions League? … Shabab, the best club nobody pays any attention to?”

I find it fun to cover, and fun to pay attention, and it’s a pretty good substitute for that baseball doubleheader I am not seeing.