» GERMANY READY TO DEFEND WORLD CUP TITLE

FRANKFURT/BERLIN — Germany coach Joachim Loew and his 23-strong squad touched down in Russia on Tuesday as they start their World Cup title defence.

There was no major reception at Vnukovo airport where they landed after a two-and-a-half hour flight and proceeded directly to their team headquarters in the Moscow suburb of Watutinki.

Team manager Oliver Bierhoff was first down the gangway decorated with a German flag, followed by Loew.

Earlier Bierhoff and captain Manuel Neuer had led the group in bidding farewell to staff at the DFB association headquarters before departing from Frankfurt airport.

On Wednesday Neuer and his colleagues will take part in an open training session at the home of CSKA Moscow.

The tournament then begins for the champions Sunday with a Group F match against Mexico in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, with Sweden and South Korea.

Germany are seeking to become just the third side to retain the World Cup and first since Brazil achieved the feat 1958-1962 — and expectations are big despite some ongoing issues.

“The team is highly developed in its tactical maturity and technical quality,” Loew said. “The details have to be right, we have to work on that.

Training for the Mexico game will take place behind closed doors from Thursday onwards.

“It is about fine-tuning and getting ready for the opponent. We will deal intensively with Mexico because its an unknown opponent for most players. And a very uncomfortable one,” Loew said.

While German fans and the team itself remain confident there are some question marks.

The final tests, a 2-1 defeat against Austria and meagre 2-1 win over Saudi Arabia, exposed various deficits; and the ongoing saga around the meeting of Ilkay Guendogan and Mesut Oezil with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan also remains an issue.

“I am not so much concerned about the team as a whole but about the two players. It does affect Mesut and Ilkay quite a lot,” Bierhoff told the Bild paper.

Loew meanwhile said that the nine remaining members from the successful 2014 squad in Brazil — such as Neuer, Oezil, Thomas Mueller, Sami Khedira, Jerome Boateng, Mats Hummels and Toni Kroos — are to lead the team in Russia.

“It is a big challenge and very tempting to confirm the World Cup title, to have the emotions of this triumph once again,” Loew said.