It lasted 23 days, but it seemed longer. Twenty-four teams, originally, from New Zealand to Canada, from Argentina to Sweden.

They played 52 games in 23 days, and many of us here in the UAE got quite used to having these kids around, and watching them on Al Jazeera, the Qatar cable station that carried every game of the tournament.

It ended with Nigeria defeating Mexico 3-0 before 20,000 people, at least half of them Nigeria’s enthusiastic fans, and it was closer than the final score would suggest. Mexico scored an own-goal in the first 10 minutes, and that meant chasing the game, and more trouble.

Now that it is over, a few observations on Nigeria and Mexico, and 17-year-old soccer players.

1. Nigeria has now won the U17 tournament four times in 15 stagings. Brazil has won it only three times, and Mexico twice.

Apparently, Nigeria has the world’s best 17-year-old players fairly often, but the talent at that level does not translate to the senior team. The big guys have made the World Cup only four times, the first in 1994, and have twice made the round of 16. Twice they did not survive group play. In 2006, they did not reach the tournament at all, and they need a result against Ethiopia next week to make it to Brazil 2014.

Also, Nigeria does not do much in the continental championship, the African Cup of Nations. Nigeria won it in 1990, 1994 and this year. That’s it. And these world-level senior results overlap the history of the U17 tournament, which means lots of very good 17YOs have been marginal or not very good adult players.

And this is a nation that apparently has lots of good young players, as well as the biggest population (175 million) in Africa.

Where does it go wrong? The obvious, and cynical answer, is that Nigeria has a reputation for sending overage players to age-group tournaments. The more subtle analysis takes us in directions suggesting that Nigeria nurtures players for export to foreign clubs, particularly in Europe, and that attacking players are the easiest to sell, leaving Nigeria with unbalanced sides.

Anyway, it seems weird to glory in your U17 program. If it doesn’t yield results for the senior team … what’s the point?

2. Nigeria was perhaps the most demonstrably pious team among a very seemingly pious group of players. Lots of Christian pointing skyward and crossing themselves, and Muslims down flat on their faces, and Nigeria’s U17 team contained quite a few of both, which made for a sort of uncomfortable but very obvious (to watch) schism in the team.

If one of the team’s Christians scored, it seemed as if he were congratulated mostly by the team’s other Christians. If a Muslim scored, certainly, no Christian joined him and other Muslim teammates in prostrating themselves in the direction of Mecca.

Nigeria has significant sectarian violence on the Muslim v Christian front. Killings are common. It is a major problem. Thus, it would seem logical, as an outsider, that Nigeria soccer officials would recommend to its players that religious-themed celebrations be avoided. Instead, anyone who didn’t already know Nigeria is quite markedly divided into Christians and Muslims … after this tournament they certainly know it.

3. Mexico’s journey through the tournament, which began and ended with losses to Nigeria (6-1, 3-0) but in between included victories over Brazil (in an 11-10 shoot-out) and Argentina, seemed to suggest that country has more competent players coming up, guys who perhaps can be looked to reinforce the national side, so limp of late.

4. When the outcome in the final was sure, several Mexico players were blubbering on the field. They were not the first. Earlier, I recall Uzbekistan’s 17YOs weeping, and Brazil’s and Argentina’s, too.

So, clearly, shedding tears when the dream ends is a fairly common reaction. At age 17. So, what happens to young men between 17 and, say, 21? Can anyone remember multiple members of, say, a college football team weeping after a loss? Do any NFL guys break down in heaving sobs when they lose in the Super Bowl?

No. They do not.

Something clearly changes, inside the minds of athletes between 17 and and maybe 23, but how that comes about, I do not know. But one of those changes is a morph from undisguised grief, in defeat, to emotions more like deep disappointment or anger.

And it happens in just a few years. Curious.

An interesting tournament, on a batch of levels.