What soccer fans love?

Winning.

What soccer fans love most?

Winning … with style.

This explains the lasting popularity of Brazil in the World Cup. Of Barcelona in European soccer. Even if reputation at times is left behind by reality, soccer fans want entertainment, and that is rep Brazil and Barcelona carry.

That is the reality at the moment for, of all places, the United Arab Emirates. The Pocket Brazil. Li’l Barcelona.

That was shown at the Asian Cup today when coach Mahdi Ali sent out a side dedicated to the attack, and the UAE overwhelmed Gulf rival Qatar, 4-1.

It was winning … and it was fun winning. The best kind.

Just to make a it a bit more exciting, Qatar scored first, on a counter-attack, the UAE’s overlapping outside backs not quite back in position, Qatar’s best player, Khalfan Ibrahim, chesting down a bouncing ball from a punchout and dropping it onto his foot — and launching a perfectly weighted looping volley into goal over keeper Majed Naser, who had come off his line for the punchout.

Normally, in the Gulf, and other regions of cautious, defense-first soccer, that 1-0 midway through the first half would be deadly.

Not, however, if you are the UAE, perhaps the most efficient scoring machine the Gulf has seen in this century. And they have turned it up, of late.

Ahmed Khalil got the first after several teammates knocked the ball around the box, when his shot was cleared … onto his chest … and the rebound went into the net.

He got the second early in the second half with a very nice free kick from the left corner of the box that cleared the Qatar wall and hooked past the frozen goalkeeper (expecting it to be a pass, apparently) and inside the far post.

The third came soon after, after a long range free kick by Khamis Ismail was stopped by the keeper but left inside the goalkeeper’s box — and tapped in by Ali Mabkhout.

The final came in the 90th minute, when Mabkhout scored after the exchange of several passes with playmaker Omar Abdulrahman. It looked a bit like a 2-on-1 fast break.

The keys here were 1) the intent of the UAE to go forward. At all times. That sort of commitment to the attack is rarely seen and much appreciated, and 2) the ability to generate scoring threats because of the high technical skills of the Emirati players, but especially that of Omar Abdulrahman.

He is the tiny kid with the enormous afro-style hair, who makes the ball roll over, sit up, beg … who I wrote about in this comment piece for The National.

He had been out seven weeks — since Saudi Arabia did the (shhh!) sensible/cynical thing and attacked his legs repeatedly, sending him out with an injury, in the semifinals of the Gulf Cup of Nation, back on November 23.

Omar was pretty much hidden, after that, and no one outside the team was sure he would play until the starting lineups were posted.

The other key is the development of Ali Mabkhout, who gives the national side two major scoring threats. Ahmed Khalil scores the sensation, out-of-nowhere goals, but then can disappear.

Mabkhout is the better technical player, and scores the ordinary goals, cleaning up in and around the box.

Since he stepped forward, the UAE has been particularly prolific.

They have 11 goals in their past four official matches, going back to the Gulf Cup, in November. They had never scored four goals in an Asian Cup goal, until today. They had never won by three goals in an Asian Cup game, till today.

This is unsual stuff. This does not happen every day, or every decade.

But their matches have become must-see TV. They are back at it on Thursday, against Bahrain.

Expect goals.