The 2014 World Cup winners could face a tough task in their opening match against Ukraine seeing that they are missing quite a few important players.

Their opponents are at full strength and determined to prove they are good enough to play at this level, so we expect to see a very interesting game at Stade Pierre-Mauroy.

The long wait for a major trophy finally came to an end for Germany as they lifted the 2014 World Cup title, but it has not been all plain sailing since.

After several important players decided to retire from international duty, Joachim Low couldn’t find high-quality replacements and he still has some dilemmas over the starting positions.

On top of that, he has had Ilkay Gundogan, Marco Reus and Antonio Rudiger miss out the tournament finals through injury, with Jonathan Tah added to the squad.

The warm-up games have proved that Germany are definitely not in the best shape, with home defeats to Slovakia and England acting as serious blows to the players’ confidence.

As a result, we don’t think there is value in odds of 1.62 (5/8) offered on Die Mannschaft to defeat Ukraine in their opening Euro 2016 fixture.

Borussia Dortmund defender Mats Hummels misses out through injury, while Bastian Schweinsteiger is not fit enough to start.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Neuer – Howedes, Boateng, Mustafi, Hector – Kroos, Khedira – Muller, Ozil, Draxler – Gotze.

Ukraine have yet to leave their mark on international stage, but the current crop of players seem good enough to make that happen.

Following numerous failures in Euro play-offs, Zbirna finally ended the barren run as they beat Slovenia to reach the Euro 2016, and they now hope to prove their worth at the tournament finals.

Ukraine have shown a great deal of promise in warm-up games, recording wins over Cyprus, Wales, Romania and Albania, and they head into the Germany game in very good spirits.

With both Roman Zozulya and Yevhen Seleznyov returning to the side, Zbirna are now much more dangerous up front, especially as they can count on the individual qualities of Yevhen Konoplyanka and Andriy Yarmolenko.

The good news is that coach Mikhail Fomenko has absolutely no selection worries ahead of the opening fixture, where his side will be hoping to avoid defeat.

With that in mind, chances are the boss will field an unchanged starting line-up to that which defeated Albania in the dress rehearsal.

Probable starting line-up (4-3-3): Pyatov – Fedetskiy, Khacheridi, Rakitskiy, Shevchuk – Sydorchuk, Stepanenko, Garmash – Yarmolenko, Zozulya, Konoplyanka.