The two-plus months between qualification and the World Cup has to be agonizing for players who’ve put in an incomplete series of performances over the past cycle. You perhaps aren’t one of the no-brainer selections and aren’t out of the reckoning altogether either, but where are you? And so begins the nailbiting.

In reality, the majority of players in Tab Ramos’ pool are on that timeline somewhere. There are probably a dozen or so players who can lean back in their chairs in their respective club locker rooms assured of their selection, but dozens more will sweat out the next couple months wondering. Where will I be when the roster comes down?

In 2015, 10 of the 21 players Ramos brought with him to New Zealand weren’t on the qualifying roster. The majority of those players were based in Europe and presumably not released for the qualifying tournament: Rubio Rubin, Gedion Zelalem, Desevio Payne and Maki Tall were the big names there. The amount of American ingenuity plying its trade in Europe these days is greater still than it was in 2015, and there were far fewer European players included in the 2017 qualifying roster than there were two years earlier. In 2015, eight Euro-based Americans were released for the CONCACAF tournament. In February, Ramos had three on his qualifying roster.

Needless to say, things will change when Ramos releases his final 21-man U20 World Cup roster for the upcoming tournament starting May 20. And probably even more so than it did two years ago.

I’m taking a stab at what that could look like in May. This is wildly variable, of course, and my own biases inevitably crept in around the edges. So perhaps this is what my roster would look like rather than Ramos’, all things considered. But damn it if I’m not a dreamer.

And no, Christian Pulisic isn’t here. Full national teamers don’t need U20 games.

Goalkeepers (3): Jonathan Klinsmann, JT Marcinkowski, Justin Vom Steeg

Klinsmann and Marcinkowski are no-brainers. They were the two American backstops in qualifying, and both got a run-out, although Klinsmann was Ramos’ clear first choice. Marcinkowski’s only run-out would’ve been relatively uneventful if not for a hospital ball played back by Justen Glad that led in St. Kitts & Nevis for an easy score. It was not flattering, and Marcinkowski wasn’t given another chance. Klinsmann wasn’t forced to make any real saves of note in CONCACAF, but he’s solid organizationally and it’s hard to imagine him not getting the starting nod in South Korea.

I’d probably roll with Vom Steeg in the XI here (World Cup roster rules require three keepers) provided he’s not in a deep rut of form with Fortuna Dusseldorf’s youth setup. But it would surprise me deeply if Klinsmann didn’t start.

Defenders (7): Cameron Carter-Vickers, Justen Glad, Erik Palmer-Brown, Danny Acosta, Marlon Fossey, Tommy Redding, Matt Olosunde

Yes, I’ve listed Erik Palmer-Brown in defense. SKC is appreciative of Palmer-Brown’s midfield deployment because it helps his distribution, but Palmer-Brown is not a World Cup-level distributor. The U.S. got away with him in the defensive midfield in CONCACAF because he had a ton of help in the central midfield, and Ramos sacrificed the high central channel to do it. He’s maybe the best pure defender on the team but he forces a lot of tracking back from his central midfield partners.

What I’d like to see in the World Cup is Carter-Vickers, hopefully released by Tottenham for his second consecutive U20 World Cup, deployed next to Palmer-Brown. They’re the two best defenders in this pool and that pairing would rival CCV-Miazga from two years ago. What do I expect? Nearly the thing we saw in qualifying: CCV in for either Redding or Glad behind Palmer-Brown. Not bad. Just different.

Midfielders (6): Tyler Adams, Gedion Zelalam, Luca de la Torre, Weston McKennie, Josh Perez, Jackson Yueill

There are a few notable omissions from qualifying here. The biggest is probably RSL’s Sebastian Saucedo, who (in my opinion) didn’t do enough to establish a position to justify including him over some of the other names here. Ramos clearly favors a 4-3-3 press system with two No. 8s capable of buzzing the middle in lieu of a straight-up No. 10, and I’ve made allowances for that here. It’s what he did in 2015 with Zelalem and Hyndman, and in that construct I think it’s possible to do it again here. With Zelalem and McKennie in front of Adams as the No. 6 this time.

De La Torre’s blase qualifying tourney wasn’t enough to kick him off the final roster, in my estimation, but it certainly wasn’t enough to earn him a starting gig. And I’ve included Yueill here with the expectation Ramos won’t, because it’d be nice to have the option to insert a No. 10 off the bench if nature calls.

Forwards (5): Brooks Lennon, Isaiah Young, Mukwelle Akale, Nick Taitague, Haji Wright

This is probably the area with the greatest number of unknowns. The back line and deep midfield probably looked like it’s going to look in qualifying, but the attacking setup was hit hard in Costa Rica by European absences. I think Lennon definitely played himself onto the final roster while Jeremy Ebobisse played himself off it by failing to score once in qualifying. Emmanuel Sabbi, meanwhile, isn’t getting games in Spain, and while he’s a quality talent I think he just misses the cut as the last one out.

Akale, Taitague, Lennon and Wright all have the look of bedeviling wide men in Ramos’ 4-3-3. Wright can shift inside to play the center forward role if necessary, but in my ideal world Isaiah Young, who recently moved to Werder Bremen, is the No. 9 between two pinching wingers. Ramos actually mentioned Josh Perez by name in the pre-tourney presser as a guy he couldn’t extract from Fiorentina for qualifiers, and his skill set gives you an understanding why. He’s an automatic starter for me on the right, with apologies to Lennon. This front line is stacked.

This might not be how the XI looks in May. But it’d certainly be a nice thing.