This never was going to be easy but until the Asian Football Confederation draw for the final round of qualifying earlier this week … it didn’t seem quite so daunting.

Two groups of six with the top two in each group — following a 10-match home-and-away, round-robin competition — securing a place at Russia 2018.

And the two third-place teams going to a playoff with the survivor getting another home-and-road duel with another federation’s fourth- or fifth-place side.

What does this mean for the UAE, the team I watched for more than five years?

It means the Emiratis must finish ahead of two of these three — Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia — to secure a direct berth in Russia 2018.

The first two have become World Cup regulars. And Saudi Arabia is the UAE’s bete noir.

And this assumes the Emiratis can see to it that Iraq and Thailand finish behind them in Group B.

The six in Group A? Iran, South Korea, Uzbekistan, China, Qatar, Syria.

China and the UAE were in Pot 4 as the groups were chosen, and it would have been a tiny bit easier, I believe, if the Emiratis had gone into Group A instead of China.

Why? Iran is trouble for the Emiratis but South Korea doesn’t seem quite as overpowering as do both Australia and Japan, and because the UAE has had far more success versus Uzbekistan than it has against Saudi.

This also is difficult for the UAE because, aside from Qatar, which has even fewer citizens, the Emirati team is drawn from such a small population — about 1 million.

The team the UAE has now is the best the country has produced since 1990, the country’s only appearance at a World Cup, in Italy.

But is it good enough to grind through 10 matches over a span of 12 months, beginning on September 1, and finish in the top three — let alone the top two?

The margin of error will be extremely small. A couple of injuries, a few losses of form, and the UAE side is far less impressive. .

Omar Abdulrahman is one of the (if not the) best playmakers in Asia. Ahmed Khalil is the reigning Asian player of the year and a prodigious scorer in international play. If either goes down …

The country has really only one striker of significance, to pair with Khalil, and that is Ali Mabkhout. That is how thin the team is.

But back to the competition.

Australia has qualified for the past three World Cups without much stress. Japan has played in every World Cup since 1998. Yet the UAE has to dislodge one of them — while also beating back the Saudis, who finished ahead of them in the previous round of qualifying, winning at home and drawing in Abu Dhabi. And the Saudis not long ago ran off a streak of four consecutive World Cup appearances, through 2006.

Each of those three federation has a far deeper pool of talent, and Oz and Japan have players scattered across some of the best leagues in the world. In Australia’s case, at Liverpool, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Bayer Leverkusen and Celtic. For Japan, at Southampton, Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Hamburg.

Individual Saudi players don’t get out much, in terms of playing outside the country, but they have a deeper and more competitive league than do the Emiratis — who don’t get out at all. Not even Omar Abdulrahman. Which stunts their growth — though perhaps helps keep them healthy, staying in a mostly non-violent home league.

Looking at this … it’s a long, long and hard road. It would be fun if the UAE somehow got to Russia 2018, but it also would be a shocking upset. Even for the best UAE team in a quarter century.