The level of soccer in the UAE is often denigrated by the sport’s local cognoscenti.Both foreign and domestic.

They seem to believe it should compare to top European leagues, which is unrealistic given that each team is limited to four expatriates, and the rest of the squad comes from an Emirati male population of about 500,000.

Imagine what sort of 12-team league you might get from a population that is about the same as that of Dallas, Texas. With only four foreigners per team.

It would not be pretty.

On the whole, however, most games here are quite good enough to interest me. First, it is local-local. It is authentically Emirati.

And the dynamic of finding expats who will score goals, and fitting them into teams that are overwhelmingly Emirati, and trying to hide the weakest of your Emirati players, and all this being attempted by foreign coaches who are fired any time they lose three in a row … it’s an interesting set of dynamics.

I can say I have been bored by only two matches this year, and each was at the same stadium and involved the same team.

Baniyas!

Baniyas is, in theory, an interesting club. Of late, it has been the most successful of the country’s clubs not located in the cities of Abu Dhabi or Dubai.

Baniyas is located on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi city. Still in Abu Dhabi, the emirate, but outside the bustle of the capital.

The population there in the sprawling waste of the desert (think Barstow, except drier) and skews Emirati as the citizenry seeks to find big houses away from crowds of expats in the big cities.

The club has made a fairly rapid rise in the past three years, from promotion in the fall of 2009 to fourth place in the 2009-10 season, to second last season. They made news this season by signing David Trezeguet, the former France international, but he got here and couldn’t deal with the place (it happens) and begged out of his contract and is now playing in Argentina.

That episode certainly hurt the club, as did the death of a promising midfielder, Theyab Awana, who will be remembered for his back-heel penalty against Lebanon, on the eve of the league season. He was a bit of a goofball, but he also could have been one of the best players in the country.

Baniyas also has been impacted by the frequent absences of their several young players who are part of the UAE’s Under 23 team, the one that was gone for much of the first three months of the year while qualifying for the London Olympics.

The worst match I have seen in the UAE was the January 22 league game between Baniyas and Ajman, a promoted side that for most of the season has played well.

In this case, both sides were a mess. Baniyas was missing its Olympic guys, who comprise about five of their top 15 players. They also had been unable to get the Spanish midfielder Francisco Yeste, brought in to replace Trezeguet, through all his paperwork. So they played with only three expats.

Ajman had only two foreigners, having recently lost Ibrahima Toure, one of the top strikers in the league, to the French club Monaco.

The result was 90 minutes of sheer wretchedness.

It did not help that the wind was blowing, as it often does out there, and it was actually cold. I had on three layers and was never warm. Three amateurish goals, laughably defended, clumsily taken, were scored in the first 15 minutes, and that was it. I was one of about 200 people in the park, and the game seemed to last forever, and Ajman won 2-1, as I suppose they deserved.

(I like Ajman. Gutty little underdogs, underfunded, from one of the northern Emirates that doesn’t have oil. The club wears orange, which strikes me as an act of bravery, and they play with cohesion and purpose. Usually.)

The second-worst match I have seen in this country happened this week, but at a higher level — in the Asian Champions League.

Baniyas is in the ACL for the first time, and it’s a fairly big deal in Asia, and they had four points from three matches and were still in contention to escape group play, and the Saudi side Al Ittihad dropped over.

Both sides seemed intent on a scoreless draw, and they got one, and soccer fans know what that can be like … when no one is really trying to score.

It was a game of turnovers, bad fouls, half-hearted exertion and massive ennui. At one point I turned to my colleagues in the media section, and none of them were watching the game. They were surfing the web, chatting with neighbors, nodding off. It was as if everyone knew the game would be scoreless, and they were just waiting for it to end.

Each side accused the other of playing for a tie, and the truth is that both of them were. Ittihad because they were the road team, Baniyas because they didn’t think they could beat one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest clubs and will try to finish second in Group B and advance in the ACL by getting a win or two in their two final games, against lesser competition.

My goodness, was that awful. What little conversation passed in the press tribune was about that topic only. “Bad game.” “Oh, my, yes.”

Baniyas being involved in both ugly games concerns me for this reason:

They have reached the final of the President’s Cup, the UAE version of the FA Cup and the second-most-important competition in the country.

It ought to be a big deal, but I fear that the presence of this Baniyas team might turn even the final, on Monday, into a dreary, dragging affair. I can only hope that Al Jazira, defending cup champions and a team that plays to win, will make the game interesting.

I know Baniyas has played good soccer, from time to time. But, this year? Not when I have been in the stands. Maybe it’s me.