Germany's defense will be put to the test in its opening Euro 2016 group match against Ukraine in Lille Sunday with major questions still to be answered about the world champion's new-look rearguard. Coach Joachim Loew's team will be without key central defender Mats Hummels, still recovering from a muscle injury, as they kick off their Group C campaign. Hummels' replacement Antonio Ruediger was ruled out with torn cruciate knee ligaments this week. Holding midfielder and captain Bastian Schweinsteiger, still working on his comeback from injury, is also absent, further complicating Loew's defensive conundrum. Benedikt Hoewedes and Jerome Boateng are the two likely central defenders but both had a long injury break late in the season and are in desperate need of match practice. Jonathan Tah, the 20-year-old who was only called up this week following Ruediger's injury, is expected to be on the bench. Toni Kroos, who will shoulder the biggest responsibility of connecting Germany's defensive and attacking game, is brimming with confidence following his Champions League win with Real Madrid. Ukraine, while outsider, is certain to test the Germans' new-look defense with quick wingers Andriy Yarmolenko and Yevhen Konoplyanka capable of inflicting severe damage. It will be up to Loew's full backs to neutralize that threat but it must also break down a steely Ukraine defense. The Germans, eyeing their fourth Euro triumph but first since 1996, have never lost an opening match at the European Championship and are aware a slip-up could prove costly. Croatia determined Croatia will seek to erase the bitter memories of its Euro 2008 failure against Turkey, described by key players as its most painful defeat ever, when they meet in this year's Group D opener in Paris. The Croatians had one foot in the last four eight years ago, after taking a 1-0 lead in the final minute of extra time in an epic quarterfinal clash in Vienna, only to concede with the last kick of the game before they lost in a penalty shootout. Croatia has not reached the knockout stages of a major tournament since and defender Vedran Corluka, a survivor from the 2008 side, said navigating a tough group was more important than getting revenge. "The bitter feeling of that loss can only be compensated by winning the European Championship," the 30-year-old center back told a news conference in the team's Deauville base camp in northern France Friday. "It's the distant past and not really in the focus of our preparations but we can push it further back in our minds and, more importantly, make the right start if we beat them at the Parc des Princes." Turkey has failed to qualify for a major tournament since its impressive Euro 2008 campaign, having been knocked out in the 2012 European Championship playoffs after a 3-0 aggregate defeat by Croatia. Their coach Fatih Terim, who steered his battling team to the semi-finals eight years ago, acknowledged that beating the Croatians was imperative ahead of matches with holder Spain and Czech Republic. "Winning this game would pave the way for a last-16 berth," Terim was quoted as saying by Turkish media. Poland faces test of patience Poland faces a test of patience and its nerves when it opens its Euro 2016 campaign against a Northern Ireland side which wants to make itself "horrible" to play against. Sunday's Group C match will pit one of the most attack-minded of the 24 teams at Euro 2016 against a team which has made no bones about its intentions. Spearheaded by the attacking duo of Robert Lewandowski and Arkadiusz Milik, Poland was the highest-scoring team in the qualifying competition with 33 goals, 13 of them coming from Bayern Munich's Lewandowski. Coach Adam Nawalka has turned them from a counter-attacking side into one that keeps possession and build attacks carefully. Northern Ireland has limited resources but manager Michael O'Neill clearly knows its place and makes no apologies for a playing style which is likely to prove a test of endurance for spectators as well as the opposition. "We are going to have to be horrible to play against," he said recently. "We are going to be really good without the ball, run further than any other team, drill all the statistics back in their face. Sixty-five per cent possession? We don't expect to have that."
