Despite Rough Ending at World Cup, Germany Are Set Up for Future Success

The 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup will not end the way Germany wanted it to. Instead of celebrating a third World Cup title, the team departed Edmonton, Alberta, with a fourth-place finish, following a 1-0 loss to England. 

Despite falling short of their ultimate goal in Canada, the Germans displayed plenty of reasons why they will be a force to be reckoned with for the next four years and more. Only four of the players on the 23-woman roster are in their 30s, and only goalkeeper Nadine Angerer is officially leaving the squad after the World Cup. Bleacher Report's Cristian Nyari noted the ages of both the women's and men's squads: 

With that in mind, Germany should use the defeats to the United States in the semifinal and to England in the third-place contest as motivation to succeed when the next set of major competitions come around in 2016, 2017 and 2019. 

Just like the large crop of talent on the men's side, Germany started to show us why the future is so bright throughout this World Cup, thanks to the showings put in by Sara Dabritz, Melanie Leupolz, Lena Petermann and Dzsenifer Marozsan. 

In Saturday's third-place match, Dabritz and Petermann were the driving force in attack along with full-back Tabea Kemme, who, until her penalty concession in the 108th minute, produced a terrific shift on the flank. Although the experienced duo of Celia Sasic and Anja Mittag took the majority of the chances in front of goal, the young attack-minded stars were the reasons why the forwards were receiving impressive service. 

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By suffering the heartbreak of losing a key game at the World Cup to a continental rival early in their careers, the German squad's young core should be able to find more drive to come back and win the 2016 Olympic tournament in Rio de Janeiro. Most of the opponents they saw at the World Cup will be their top challengers for the gold medal in Brazil. 

Currently, hosts Brazil, Colombia and France are the other three teams confirmed for the competition, but we should expect to see the United States, Japan and Australia qualify for the tournament over the next six months. 

Another source of motivation, if they really need it, is that the Olympics will be manager Silvia Neid's final tournament in charge. With that in mind, the squad's young players should drive themselves to new heights in order to help one of the top figures in women's soccer leave the game with a trophy. 

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Players such as Dabritz, Petermann and Marozsan will also face plenty of competition from within to get better in the buildup to the Olympics, the 2017 UEFA European Championship and the next World Cup in four years.

The squad's established members such as Sasic, Mittag, Melanie Behringer and Lena Goessling are not going anywhere, which means the Germans have a chance to build up enough depth to field two quality squads.

Club-level competition will also help improve the young core's talent, as most of the stars play in the Frauen-Bundesliga. Only four of the 23 players on the World Cup squad plied their trade outside of Germany last season, and one of them was Angerer. 

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Some of the German talent pool's standout prospects also have a mentor to learn from at the club level. The 23-year-old Marozsan has already learned a good amount in Frankfurt from Sasic, who scored six World Cup goals. While they may not have someone like Sasic to play with in Freiburg, Dabritz and Petermann have an opportunity to improve while playing with each other. 

If you take a glance further back on the pitch at the defensive standouts, you will see 22-year-old Leonie Maier, 23-year-old Kemme and 25-year-old Bianca Schmidt ready to shine for the next few years at the position.

While direct replacements for Annike Krahn and Saskia Bartusiak have not been confirmed yet, we should assume Germany will find quality replacements for the star defensive duo through the names mentioned above or other talent coming up in the system. 

If the Germans can find a way to mesh all of this superb individual talent into a strong collective heading into the Olympics, they could be back at the throne of women's football sooner rather than later. 

Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.