Big test ahead for Lahm's Germany

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Philipp Lahm will face the biggest challenge of his football career when he begins Germany's World Cup campaign in their opening encounter against Australia on June 13. The Bayern Munich player was appointed as captain after their regular skipper Michael Ballack got injured while playing for Chelsea in the FA Cup final.

The quick dribbling skills of 5ft7in Lahm, astuteness to assess danger and clearing it before it gets too serious and ability to enter the other half by outfoxing a number of opponents makes him one of the most complete defenders playing the game at the moment.

Though there are other players - Arne Friedrich (70 caps), and Miroslav Klose (95 caps) - senior to him in the side, coach Joachim Loew would have chosen him for the consistency he has shown over the years. Lahm burst into the international scene with his man-of-the-match performance in 2-1 win over Croatia in 2004. He played full 90 minutes in that game and also earned his place for 2004 European Championship squad.

After missing a good part of 2005 in injuries, Lahm was chosen in the national team as soon as he recovered. Although, Germany were knocked out in the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup by Italy and later settled on the third place, Lahm was the only German player to play all 690 minutes of the event in his home country.

He repeated the performance in the 2008 Euro Championships and his goal against Turkey in the semifinals took his side in the decisive encounter against the final winner Spain.

Filling the shoes of Ballack would be a task in itself for this 26-year-old German, who also represented VfB Stuttgart on loan from 2003-05. It is not just the experience, but the leadership quality of Ballack that would be in line for Lahm to replicate in sports' biggest extravaganza.

He would hope to get plenty of support from his young team, with only three out of 23 players over the age of 30, to get his job done. With plenty of zeal and quality, Lukas Podolsky, together with Bastian Schweinsteiger could turn out to be the star performers of this World Cup. And Lahm would wish that they would touch the excellence shown by Miroslav Klose in the previous Cup.

Loew will definitely test the other forwards - Cacau, Thomas Muller, Stefan Kiessling and Mario Gomez - at some point in this tournament. These players will be helped by Mesut Ozil, Sami Khedira and Marko Marin and others in the midfield, while Holger Badstuber, Arne Friedrich and Jerome Boateng will support their captain Lahm at the back.

Hans-Jorg Butt, with tons of club-football experience, seems to be the front runner to hold the goal post ahead of Manuel Neuer and Tim Wiese.

Germans, with their rich football history and flair of their own, would love to go a step ahead this time.