The UAE national team, the country’s best in 25 years, lost 2-1 at Saudi Arabia last night, and suddenly their chances of qualifying for the Russia 2018 World Cup are slim.

A team ranked 70th in the world by Fifa, fifth-best in Asia, may not get out of the second round of Asian Football Confederation qualifying. At the least, fans here thought the Emiratis would get to the final round of 12.

But a 90th-minute goal in Jeddah complicated that significantly.

I wrote about this for the Saturday editions of The National.

A significant concern is how poorly the UAE played in the loss to the Saudis, whose current team should not be compared to those who qualified for four consecutive World Cups, from 1994 through 2006. These Saudis are competent. Not much more. They are ranked 80th in the world, by Fifa.

But they were far better than was the UAE, which had breakdowns across the pitch. Omar Abdulrahman, the star midfielder, was probably the best of the Emiratis, even taking into account the dangerous tackle he made that led to the 90th-minute penalty kick.

Clearly, the team has to get better, and I addressed that in the comment piece.

But I also focused on how tricky getting out of this stage is now for the UAE. The arithmetic is getting dangerous.

The winners of the eight groups in Asia second-round qualifying go to the final 12, as do the four second-place teams with the best records. At this moment, the UAE ranks last of the eight No. 2 teams.

They have four matches left, but one of them will not count, the match against whomever finishes last — probably Malaysia. (Malaysia beating East Timor next week would be big, for the UAE, making their 10-0 victory over Malaysia count — both as three points and 10 goals to the good, in differential, the first tiebreaker.)

The Emiratis get the other three matches at home, in the second half of this round, against East Timor, Palestine and Saudi, the final two matches coming up in March.

They probably need to win all three, starting with the match against East Timor next month. Emirati fans need a reason to believe or they will not turn out for the final two matches, and not much is sadder, in soccer, than a significant match played in an empty stadium.

This country loves soccer, and it loves the national team, but this also is a culture that prefers to distance itself from losing causes, and that  is the way things are headed, at the moment. The 2-1 last night was crushing.