There you go. That’s the roster. Of course you can bellyache about this inclusion or that inclusion, but such bellyaching is completely futile.

First, there’s really not much on Bruce Arena’s roster about which to debate.

I suppose you could bellyache the Jimmy Conrad selection and say Berhalter would have been the more obvious choice. But isn’t that nagging little ache just the tug of your inner-Eurosnob, isn’t that just the squeaky little voice that doubts Major League Soccer, that can’t quite shake that old superstition that says European based players are inherently more prepared for the international stage than players plying their trade right here in the States? And isn’t that nagging little achy voice overdue for a right and proper beating? Jimmy Conrad earned his spot.

Perhaps I would have taken Taylor Twellman over Brian Ching. Perhaps. But truth be told I really can’t justify taking one or the other. I think I understand why Bruce chose Ching. If Brian the Elder takes a knock, Brian the Younger will come in handy. Of course, I can come up with an equally valid argument for Twellman. Perhaps I’d even consider taking Twellman over Wolff. But, then again, I’ve never been a great fan of Wolff. And there is something to say for his international experience. Back and forth it goes; it’s an exercise in futility.

So Hejduk gets pulled with an ACL injury the day after the roster is announced and Albright comes in to take his place. It’s lousy for Hejduk but when you get right down to it Hejduk vs Albright isn’t going to make much difference. Hejduk runs all day (like a chicken with its head cut off some say) and has loads of experience. But I don’t trust him one bit and whenever he steps on the field I think he’s a red card or a penalty kick waiting to happen. To me he’s always been the soccer player equivalent of a ticking time bomb. Albright? He’s a top notch defender and he’s more versatile than Hejduk in the attack. He lacks experience but he brings other attributes to the team, namely crossing and set piece ability. Ticking time bomb with plenty of experience vs an inexperienced but more versatile player? It’s a wash. Anyone who spends much time worrying about it is wasting his time.

Second, it’s done. The roster is decided and there ain’t nothing you can do or say about it. For this brief moment there is nothing to talk about. It is what it is and nothing’s gonna change that. Right now we just have a list of 23 names. Those are our guys: come what may.

Come what may. That’s been the underlying sense for me since the roster was announced. Come what may: whatever happens will happen. Come what may.

I know the fatalism will wear off as June draws closer. Training camps and friendlies will instill in us a sense that we control our fate. Come June we’ll have a structure of reasonable expectations, we’ll have criterion for judgment and we’ll have a sense of exactly what to expect from this team. No matter what happens in camp we’ll go to Germany and with an idea of what has to occur if we’re going to control the situation and dictate the games.

Of course this sense of control is merely by proxy. And, yet, it is not unreasonable. If we, “the home viewer,” can speak with some facility about what we have to do to control the situation then surely the coaches and players, who see and (hopefully) know more than us, can do the same. Particularly at the World Cup, particularly in evenly matched groups like ours, every team - at least as an intellectual exercise - ought to be able to anticipate and understand what it must do to succeed.

But there is a distinction between thinking you know what you have to do, and truly knowing what you have to do. There is also a distinction between knowledge and actualization. You can’t tell where teams end up amid those distinctions until the game is played. That is also why this sense of control is only temporary. Once the whistle blows that fatalism will take hold again. There’ll be 11 guys on one side and 11 guys on the other: come what may.