Not sure I’ve ever given an idea of what it is like for a sports writer to cover a soccer game, here in the UAE.

Some of it will seem familiar to American journos. But some of it is not at all similar to your experience in a U.S. press box — from being served fresh-squeezed juice by a waiter to players who rarely talk. Even if you share a language.

So, tonight I covered Al Wahda’s league home game with Baniyas, here in Abu Dhabi. Let me take you through a typical experience, here in the Gulf.

First, an acknowledgement: The process is becoming more professional. I am in my fourth season here, and the improvements can be seen even before a reporter gets to the press box.

League teams generally have an office, now, where reporters show their season credential and sign in. Then the junior PR man gives you a ticket. (This is how it is done at the World Cup; credential, but you also need a ticket.)

A couple of years ago, if you had a credential, you just walked into any stadium in the league. Tickets were not necessary. If a reporter showed up with a friend, odds were pretty good that non-working non-journalist could still get a seat in the press box.

In some ugly situations, with a big crowd, people would take advantage of the lack of barriers and sit in press areas. And no one wants to work sitting next to fans.

Most of the league’s stadiums are fairly old and not impressive, inside or out. Wahda is no exception. Things are a bit tatty, as the Brits would say. And the decor is, I’m guessing, 1980s Arabesque.

So, after getting my ticket, I exited the credentials room and entered the building again a few doors down. Past where the Baniyas team bus was parked. A security guard tore the stub off my ticket and motioned me through a door in a room that afterward would become the mixed zone.

Up one flight of stairs, and you are confronted with a long hallway with doors on either side. It looks like the layout of a small high school, perhaps.

I needed a “team sheet” — lineups, in American usage. A kid was sitting behind a counter (again, an improvement, at Wahda) and I eventually conveyed to him what I needed, and he made me a copy. Now I’m ready to go.

Up another flight of stairs, which brings us out at nearly the top of the stadium — which is two stories on the big part of the stadium, which is about two-thirds the length of the pitch. The other 70 percent of the stadium is one level, about 10 rows deep. Capacity is maybe 10,000.

Past another security guy, who motions me towards the press area, which at Wahda, as is the case at most league stadiums, is in the upper reaches of the VIP section, and off to a side.

Down below, where the real VIPs sit, are plush chairs, individual TVs and regular service from waiters in vest and tie. This is where the sheikhs, the board members, visiting coaches, player agents and WAGs (wives and girlfriends) sit.

I am with the scribes, and our seats are similar to those you might see in a grade school — a very angular wooden chair, with a table that is attached to one arm and comes up and then folds over — to provide a typing/writing surface. Think about four rows of five chairs each. With a power outlet every couple of seats — also an improvement on the old days when a “big” club like Wasl had one outlet for all of press row.

At UAE games, almost all the guys in the press box know each other. My understanding is that many of the papers in the country have a beat writer for each of the 14 teams in the league. That’s a lot of staff, but it could be the case. When I think of it, the guys I see at Wahda … I don’t see when Wahda isn’t playing.

It is customary for everyone in the press box to greet everyone else, as they arrive, usually by name and then to add the hearty slap-like (but soft-grip) regional handshake. (In the U.S., no one would shake hands. And the greetings would be more of a nod and a “hey”.) I knew only one guy in the Wahda press box, a competitor at an English language paper, and I said hello and sat. No handshaking. Which probably is rude, but does everyone really want to be re-introduced to the English-speaking guy they see about once a year? I decide no.

We have two televisions in the media area, small, but there they are, and if you are in the first couple of rows you can see them well enough. Just a few years ago, some teams did not have TVs in the press box, or had maybe one, and everyone jammed together to see replays — which are vital for covering soccer because only the most experienced soccer hands can tell you who made the pass to the guy who made the pass.

Before the game, a guy came through handing out small plastic bottles of water. This also is standard, in the region. Most of the season here is played during hot months, and everyone drinks those little bottles of water.

All announcements on the PA are in both Arabic and English, which is helpful and a bit optimistic, given that almost no English speakers attend UAE soccer matches.

And so the game begins. To the immediate left of the press area is a fairly dense formation of Wahda fans, young and noisy. Across the field is a smaller group of Baniyas fans, who entered the stadium through a separate gate and are limited in where they can sit. So that opposing fans don’t mix. Authorities here are very cautious.

Around the 35th minute, one of the guys in vest and tie who has been delivering drinks to the VIPs has some extra juice and some extra time, and comes over with a tray to the press area, where the 15 or so reporters mostly take a cup. I had something red; maybe pomegranate juice.

At halftime, most stadiums have snacks for reporters to eat. Finger food. Pastries with lamb or cheese inside (kibbeh or somosas), maybe some small sandwiches with the crusts cut off, British-style. Falafel, perhaps. A couple of liter bottles of soft drinks are put out.

Which is appreciated, but anyone who has covered soccer on deadline knows you do a lot of writing at halftime. So I miss out on the snacks — which, for reporters, have been put out inside the media workroom, one floor below. (Barely a crumb survived till after the game; similar behavior to what you would see in a U.S. press box, where almost nothing goes uneaten.)

When the game ends, we stick around for a minute to watch both teams exit the pitch. Sometimes, we get a bit of drama there.

Then, it’s down to the media room, where the coaches are brought in to meet with reporters. (Or, reporters can go down to mixed zone and attempt to talk to players as they hustle out. In the UAE, the mixed zone nearly always is a waste of time; aside from live TV interviews on the field, players rarely speak after games. And while waiting for entire teams to blow you off, you miss the coaches.)

Oh, and a big thing. Internet access.

This is still a problem, but not the nightmarish problem it was a few years ago. I clearly remember breaking all sorts of laws while racing to the nearest hotel to file, after a match, because the Al Ain stadium did not have live wifi for an international friendly.

What we did, two or three years ago, was try to equip reporters with a “dongle”, which allows the writer to pick up a signal out of thin air, and works fine — unless the crowd is big, and then all the smart phones overwhelm the system.

Some of the less up-to-date stadiums still do not have internet access, which leads to reporters typing on their smart phones to file, which is not ideal.

(A test for any active reporter: To find out how utterly dependent you have become on eternal internet access, try covering a game with your laptop turned off. Can’t blog; can’t tweet; can’t look up statistics. You would realize you’re an internet junkie. Without a fix, you’re nearly useless.)

In this case, the Wahda wifi mostly worked. About a half-dozen times, it stalled out on me, which was annoying while writing “running” but an real problem in the press room, where I was unable to type in quotes live.

On the whole, though, the wifi worked. I didn’t have to leave the stadium to file, which was a regular occurrence back in 2010.

In the soccer world, coaches are brought to the media. Not like in baseball and some other U.S. sports, where the media often go to the manager, who sits behind his desk and fields questions for as long as anyone is willing to ask.

Language is a problem here. Most coaches in the UAE are not fluent in English or Arabic — and those are the only two languages used by daily journalists.

Which leads to translations, which leads to problems, because good translators are hard to find and generally cost money. Most clubs find a kid who speaks two languages, and then they put him up at the dais with the coach.

It gets worse when two translators are needed, which happens fairly frequently, and it did tonight. The Baniyas coach is from Uruguay and is not fluent in Arabic or English. So, he spoke in Spanish, and a kid translated that into Arabic … and then a second kid translated the Arabic into English.

I know just enough Spanish to know the coach was saying more interesting stuff than what we got, after two filters.  That is always how it works; from the Olympics to UAE soccer: Translations get shorter, as they go along.

It works the other way, too. The floor is opened for questions, and you look at the coach and ask the question he doesn’t understand, and it goes to him in the opposite way he spoke to us — to the Arabic-English guy, to the Arabic-Spanish guy, and then back.

Coaches outside the U.S. are drilled to say very little interesting. They will not give you an evaluation on a player 99 percent of the time. (“I do not speak of individual players; only the team.”) Which is annoying. But, too, once in a while a guy will go off — especially if he is Diego Maradona, say.  Or Walter Zenga. So, yes, we go to the interview room, if time allows.

You type the least-dreary quotes into your nearly completed story, at least when the wifi hasn’t stalled and your google document suddenly isn’t accessible.

You read it through a time or two, and you paste the story to an email file, click send … and there you.

A little more difficult than it is in the States. For sure. But not as hard as it was just a few years ago.

And way, way, way less access to players — which I will write about further soon.