That would be me. With the UAE long ago eliminated from contention for the Brazil 2014 World Cup, I have decided my team, here in the sprawling Asian Football Confederation, is Lebanon.

I spent all of three days in Beirut for a qualifier last September, and I saw the return match in Abu Dhabi in February, and I have decided I like their team, and their feisty little German coach, and their front-running fans and their big, sad, crumbling stadium.

The Cedars, as they seem to like to be known, began the final round of qualifying tonight, and they suffered a brutal, 1-0 defeat at home against Qatar, with the bogus Qatari, Sebastien Soria, scoring the goal.

This makes me a bit melancholy, which is how I know I’m a Lebanon fan.

Lebanon has been bad at soccer/football so long that the country seemed perilously close to becoming the first basketball country in the Mideast. I thought it was just Lebanese perversity, but I later decided it is a defense mechanism.

Of course they are football fans, but it hurts too much, and maybe is an exercise in masochism, to support Lebanon’s national team.

I saw what was their biggest success in years, when they overpowered the UAE 3-1 in Beirut, and the event was so chaotic, and the facilities at Camille Chamoun Stadium so primitive,  I actually was charmed, in a “wow, that was stressful reporting from there” sort of way.

That victory prompted UAE professional clubs to bring over no fewer than three of Lebanon’s guys to play here: Youssuf Mohammed at Al Ahli, Hassan Maatouk at Ajman, Abbas Atwi at Dubai. And I saw them play and, well, it reinforced my sense of connection.

So, Lebanon got to the final round of qualifying for the first time in the country’s history, and that included victories over Kuwait and, the big one, over South Korea, which is a hegemon in Asian football.

No sane person believes Lebanon will finish in the top two of Group A, and clinch an automatic berth to Brazil, or even third, which would put them in a playoff … but it would have been nice to open with a win at home over Qatar. Just to keep the dream alive a few more months.

A kid who writes for The Daily Star, in Beirut, name of Fitzroy Morrissey, noted how the Lebanese actually embraced their own team, here for the past few months, putting away the European soccer flags normally hanging around the country.

The killer goal was the result of a badly struck backpass that Soria pounced on for an easy goal in the 64th minute.

Qatar, if you haven’t heard, has several key players who are not exactly native to the Gulf. That’s how they roll in Qatar: Whatever it takes. Soria is from Uruguay, and is a serious player — which you expect when a country goes looking for foreigners to whom it is willing to give passports.

Another one of their imported Qataris is Lawrence Quaye, a midfielder from Ghana, who played all 90 minutes. Their imported Brazilian, a veteran defender named Marcone, got in as a substitute, and a Senegalese-Qatari, Baba Ndiaye, was on the bench. They also can bring in Fabio Cesar, another Brazilian, if they like, or their Guinean defender, Daniel Goumou …

Basically, when Qatar sees something it wants, it buys it.

Lebanon, meanwhile, plays with Lebanese guys. Hard to get foreigners to go to Lebanon and take out citizenship, what with the domestic league nearly broke and facilities shabby and the threat of war hanging over the country all the time.

But they have a nice little team, all things considered. They seem to be in that nice place where they have one of just about everything they need, like some of the world’s other good small-nation teams. Except, in this case, they were missing a scorer.

Which makes me sad, as a Lebanon fan.

Lebanon gets Uzbekistan at home on Friday, and if the Trees can’t beat the Uzbeks (1-0 losers at home to Iran tonight) their final-round campaign will be over almost before it begins.