It wasn’t the outcome the United States wanted in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup, but there were still some standout American performances over the four games in Germany.

Crystal Dunn: The back line was never a problem for the United States, allowing only two goals on shots for which the opponents deserve more praise than the defenders deserve blame. And though not exactly imposing in stature, Dunn was the biggest reason why the back line held its own. She was composed in organization, quick to the ball in support and one-on-one situations and strong in her tackles. Replacing Whitney Engen in the middle of Anson Dorrance’s three-back is asking a lot of anyone, let alone a freshman, but Dunn appears up for that kind of challenge.

Bianca Henninger: Was she moving early on the penalty saves? It’s hard to argue otherwise, especially on the first shot. Whether she was breaking the speed limit by enough to get the state trooper moving, to borrow a metaphor, is debatable. But the ending aside, Henninger was outstanding throughout the tournament. From the distance of a television screen, she never appeared rattled but was frequently audible — a good combination in a keeper. Santa Clara lost a lot, most notably Jordan Angeli and Kiki Bosio, but it still has Henninger.

Kristie Mewis: She was the team’s most consistently creative midfield presence. Sometimes the chances might not have come with the greatest odds of success, but American soccer at every level isn’t overflowing with midfielders willing to take risks in pursuit of brilliance — and with the skill to do it in the air or on the ground. It will be interesting to see where she plays for Boston College this season. Her long-term future might be as an outside back with attacking flair in the Sergio Ramos mold.

Captain Christine Nairn still seems the most likely member of the U-20 team to make the return trip to Germany for the senior World Cup next year, if any make that trip, but Dunn, Henninger and Mewis are three I’ll be looking for in 2015.

The United States played well enough to win during much of its stay in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup. Unfortunately, it didn’t play quite so well to ensure it did win.

And so it was that with Sunday’s quarterfinal deadlocked at 1-1 after 90 minute of regulation and 30 minutes of extra time, Nigeria eliminated the United States 4-2 on penalty kicks.

Call it a harsh ending for a tournament of harsh realities.

The game officially goes in the books as a draw, but for the first time ever in a major women’s competition, an African side walked off the field against an American team with a victory (a week and a half after an American side dropped points against an African side for the first time in a 1-1 draw against Ghana).

And for the first time ever in a women’s competition (World Cup, Under-20 World Cup, Under-17 World Cup or Olympics), the United States was eliminated before the semifinals.

If not for a few inches on Kristie Mewis’ shot off the crossbar in the second extra period, the United States might have escaped with a win. If not for half a step or half a beat of premature anticipation, at least as judged by the referee, one of keeper Bianca Henninger’s back-to-back saves against Nigeria’s Esther Sunday in the shootout might have counted and prolonged matters.

For that matter, a few inches either way in trajectory and Sunday’s blistering equalizer might have hit the wall or the crossbar instead of tying the score with barely 12 minutes to play in regulation.

Sunday’s shot was one of only two goals the United States allowed during the run of play in four games in Germany, both struck from 30 yards away and both leaving Henninger no opportunity to react and little room for anyone to blame the defenders in front of her.

It all makes for a rather severely miniscule margin of error — like NASA missing a goal-sized target on Mars by mere feet. It’s still a successful venture in the abstract — in this case, winning the CONCACAF qualifying tournament in Guatemala and winning Group D by taking seven points out of nine — but it’s ultimately unsatisfying.

There is a bigger picture in all of this. In each of the previous four Under-20 events, at least three out of the quartet of Brazil, Germany, North Korea and the United States reached the semifinals. China also earned a pair of semifinal trips in that span. In truth, only France rated as an outsider in earning a fourth-place finish two years ago. But in Colombia, Nigeria and South Korea, this year’s final quartet features not only three new faces but three new faces representing distinct parts of the globe.

Brazil didn’t get out of its group. China and Canada, the latter another habitual qualifier, didn’t even make the field of 16 teams. Mexico made it out of its group for the first time in any women’s tournament, only to lose to a South Korean team that has played the most entertaining, skillful soccer this side of Germany thus far in the event.

During the broadcast of Sunday’s game, the announcer noted that German legend Franz Beckenbauer, in attendance, had remarked on the increased parity in the women’s game. It’s the kind of thing people like Beckenbauer say when hosting a FIFA event in advance of next year’s senior World Cup in Germany and when they have aspirations to bring the men’s Cup back to Germany in the not-so-distant future.

But on occasion, even perfunctory diplomacy coincides with the truth.

The United States still has a depth of talent that’s difficult for any country to match. Through the mutually beneficial interaction of colleges, WPS and U.S. Soccer, it also has the infrastructure to take the talent at youth levels and ensure it continues improving, something countries like Nigeria, Mexico and Colombia still need to prove they can manufacture and maintain. It also doesn’t have much margin for error anymore.

To call a quarterfinal exit against Nigeria anything other than disappointing would be to diminish the talent and commitment of the players on this American team. They expected to contend for a championship because that’s what comes with putting on that national team jersey. They had the talent to contend, certainly the talent to stick around longer than four games. And they made the mistakes that will haunt them: missed finishing opportunities, difficulty maintaining possession and creating scoring chances out of sustained buildup and squandered set pieces, among them.

At the same time, it feels unfair to throw around words like “failure” without regard to to context of the bigger picture. This team didn’t fail; it just didn’t win.

Instead of only itself to blame, the U.S. also had the rest of the world to thank.

The United States’ 5-0 win against Switzerland in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup guaranteed one team in Group D safe passage through to the next round.

Granted, it was the South Koreans, watching from the stands in Dresden, who saw their place in the knockout phase confirmed by a combination of their own 4-2 win against Ghana earlier in the day and Swiss elimination, but why quibble over minor things like details. The math means the Americans still have work to do against those same South Koreans in the final game of group play, but the Yanks looked more like defending champions than was the case in a 1-1 draw against Ghana.

What went right: Having more talent. Yes, sometimes this stuff is really complicated. If Saturday’s game was a contest involving watchmaking, bobsleighing or maintaining neutrality, sure, the Swiss might have enjoyed some inherent advantages (anything “mit Rosti” is also right in their wheelhouse).

Soccer is not quite the same story.

Going into the game, United States coach Jill Ellis said she wanted to “keep our players isolated at times so we can get players faced up.”

That’s essentially a nice way of saying the only chance the Swiss had was to put all 11 players around the 18-yard box and leave the Americans to try and dance inside a phone booth. (It occurs to me that it’s quite possible no player on this team is old enough to have ever used a phone booth. This is a somewhat depressing realization. But I digress.)

The Swiss weren’t helpless. There’s a reason Ramona Bachman already counts Umea IK and the Atlanta Beat on her professional resume, and it’s difficult to think of too many college coaches who wouldn’t happily put Danique Stein into the middle of a back line tomorrow. But on a one-for-one basis, the Swiss don’t have the skill or athleticism of Sydney Leroux, Kristie Mewis, Zakiya Bywaters or Maya Hayes, the four players who spent the most time pressing the issue in open space near the Swiss goal.

Aside from the obvious of Leroux’s hat trick on goals that ran the gamut of the skill set that puts her among the world’s best in the age group, Mewis and Hayes jumped off the screen with strong first-half performances (the second half existing as little more than a bonus cardio workout).

As exciting in open space as any Boston athlete this side of Rajon Rondo, Mewis put her team on the scoreboard in the fourth minute with a blast from 15 yards that provided something close to an instant replay of Frank Lampard’s goal-that-wasn’t against Germany in South Africa — only judged correctly this time by the referee, which would surely please Sepp Blatter if, you know, he was watching this tournament. But the Boston College rising sophomore was a force beyond that tally. She seemed to have more room to roam in the midfield with Hayes playing a different sort of forward than Vicki DiMartino did in the first half of the first game, and not many midfielders can match her for the combination of strength of shot and creativity.

For her part, Hayes didn’t disappoint after earning the start. She appears to be a good fit alongside goal-oriented players like Leroux and Mewis, able to stretch the field, open space and speed up the game but also possessing the touch to then keep play developing — as she did in setting up Leroux’s first goal with a perfect, subtle pass across the top of the box.

That the United States scored five goals for the first time since 2002 in an Under-20 World Cup wasn’t nearly as impressive as watching a lineup where, particularly in the first half, the pieces seemed to complement each other. That certainly doesn’t mean they can’t do the same with DiMartino (or Teresa Noyola or Courtney Verloo) on the field, but the more options Ellis has to work with, the better it is for the team’s prospects.

What went wrong: That the United States was going to win this game was in little doubt from the outset. That it did so with a clean sheet was as much due to Swiss bad luck as anything else. Right from the outset, when Ana Crnogorcevic (understandable that her parents would want to keep her first name short) sent an open header in front of goal just wide in the third minute, the Swiss had plenty of chances.

The American back line has generally looked good — bordering on outstanding — through two games. The only ball that has gotten past keeper Bianca Henninger, the best in Germany at her position to this point, in my humble opinion, was on a shot from 30-plus yards that will go down as one of the goals of the tournament.

Center backs Crystal Dunn and Toni Pressley are steady in the best possible sense of an adjective that can go either way. At least in watching on television from an ocean away, neither Dunn nor Pressley leave you holding your breath when the opponent has the ball near the box. As Pressley did with a number of assertive, confident tackles in and around penalty territory against Switzerland, they always seem to make the necessary plays.

But as with Crnogorcevic’s header, where she slipped into open space between Dunn and Rachel Quon, it’s tough to escape the nagging feeling that both Ghana and Switzerland had just a few too many opportunities in dangerous space for teams that don’t rank near the top of the tournament field. Against the Swiss, Christine Nairn quietly had a strong game tracking back on defense, Amber Brooks made some good plays and outside backs Kendall Johnson and Quon were solid again, but even before the score got out of hand, there were a few less-than-cohesive moments.

Beginning with the game against South Korea and continuing into any additional games, the rest of the United States’ opponents are likely to be more skilled at both setting up chances and finishing them.

Speaking of which …

What’s next: For those who don’t get ESPNU or ESPN3.com, there’s good news, with the game against South Korea airing Wednesday on ESPN2 at 12 p.m. ET.

And it should be worth tuning in. The South Koreans have their place in the next round, and in truth, Group C is in such a confusing state of affairs with Mexico and Nigeria on top of the table and Japan and England in danger of elimination that the Koreans aren’t likely to have much incentive to go for the win against the United States to avoid anyone (they’ll know the order of Group C finish by the start of the game). But all that said, no team is likely to pass up a shot at the United States, especially considering much of this South Korea team was part of the team eliminated 4-2 by the United States in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Under-17 Women’s World Cup.

Lee Hyun Young scored both of South Korea’s goals in that 2008 U-17 game and is a regular in the U-20 starting lineup, but it’s Ji So Yun who leads this year’s tournament with five goals in two games. For comparison, five goals was enough to win the Golden Ball as the leading scorer for the entire tournament in both 2006 and 2008.