Every serious soccer nation has several layers of competition, and most have annual competitions that involve all of them in one big messy group.

Such is the case in the UAE. It’s called the President’s Cup, and it involves all 30 or so real soccer clubs. Which actually are quite a lot considering about 90 percent of the players on those teams come from the 1 million or so Emiratis, the UAE citizens.

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that the level of competence between the top … and the bottom … is pretty enormous.

I traveled to Dubai last week to see Al Ain, the most successful soccer club in the country, play Masafi, one of the least accomplished.

What I came away with is that the little guys have no hope of beating the big guys. Not all the way to the end.

That story is here. If you’re into world soccer, you might want to have a look at it.

The gist of it is … that since the UAE’s top league went fully professional three years ago, the lower levels have basically no hope. Unlike, say, England, where tiny clubs inevitably win an FA Cup game or three against Premier League clubs every year. And fairly regularly, still, a lower-division club (like Cardiff City or Southampton) makes it to the final.

That won’t happen here. The gulf between first division and third is just too vast. Not that the little guys ever have had much success. The only example I could find of a lower-division club winning the President’s Cup was Baniyas, in 1992. Baniyas is now in the top tier.

Then you have the likes of Masafi, a club based in a little town in the northern UAE that is by far best known for bottled water. About 1,000 people live in the Ras al Khaimah half of the city. And that town is supposed to be able to produce a club from Abu Dhabi, the capital; or Dubai or Al Ain? Not going to happen.

But it’s fun/interesting to watch them try. Masafi was the team I went to see because they somehow defeated Sharjah, a top-tier team, in the first round. In a shootout.

But when I saw the Masafi guys come out on the field, I knew they had no chance.  They barely looked like athletes, most of them. They had the smallest guy I’ve ever seen on an adult’s soccer field. (Really, like 5-4, 100 pounds; he could be a jockey.) And their “star” is a guy from Morocco who isn’t remotely as good as he acts like he is. He has some size, but he’s clumsy and slow. Before the first half hour was over, two of Masafi’s guys, probably not in tiptop shape, went out with injuries, and then a bottom-division club was fielding two of its backups against a nine-time champion of the UAE.

As I noted in the lede, the Masafi coach has a real job, as a cop; the team sometimes practices only once a week and the players drive themselves to matches. Al Ain’s posh team bus (one of posh “coach” style buses) probably cost more than all of Masafi’s players. Actually, I’m sure of it. The coach said all the players get paid something, but he called it “short money.” (He perhaps meant “small money” … but as a native Arabic speaker he was doing pretty well in English.)

Al Ain, which is having a horrible season, beat Masafi 3-0. The little guys didn’t manage a shot on goal. It was absolutely no contest.

But now it’s gotten a little weird. Al Ain was judged, yesterday, to have used an ineligible player in the 3-0 victory over Masafi, and was kicked out of the President’ Cup, and the Football Association decided that Masafi is back in the tournament. In the quarterfinals, actually.

Next up? The defending champions from Al Wahda. One of the half-dozen biggest clubs in the country. Maybe Masafi will even practice a few times before they play them.