First, I just want to say I saw Uzbekistan’s national team play probably the most important match in the history of the country. I am proud of that. Really.

Yes, I know. You’re saying, “Uzbekistan? That’s a real country? You didn’t just make that up, did you?”

Yes, it is a real country. If it weren’t could it have this long wikipedia entry? (Well, it could, but trust me; real country.)

Anyway, you have never seen a team look as defeated/deflated as the Uzbekistan national team looked after Australia beat the snot out of it, 6-0 (the famous Oz-Uz game), in the semifinals on Tuesday.

The poor saps must have wished they could have gone home. But the problem here is that they have a third-place match, and it actually matters, a little, because it assures the third-place team of a decent draw in the next Asian Cup.

So, the Uzbek coach and an Uzbek player presented themselves for media scrutiny two days after getting thrashed, one day before playing South Korea for third place, and it was a bit like asking a couple of guys to explain, again, how their dogs died.

While preparing to write the story I did for The National, I spent a long time trying to determine how to describe the look on the face of the player, a midfielder named Azizbek Haydarov. And gave up. Just too much there.

He was slumped in his chair, arms crossed, defensively; glowering-pouting-in mourning-angry-whipped-defeated. It was quite remarkable, that look. Like, “no matter what any of you say, it’s unfair, but I just lost maybe the biggest sports event in the history of my country 6-nil, so this can’t be worse than this, but I wish to hell I weren’t here and that the Earth would swallow me up. Oh, poor me … you jerks.”

Something like that.

Anyway, read the story. These guys were absolutely not over it, today. I don’t know if they ever will be.  Beating South Korea in the third-place match will help. A teeny bit. Not that that’s going to happen.