"Our group is the hardest," Beckenbauer wrote in a column in Bild newspaper. "There are at most two favourites in the other groups but in our group there are three. It's going to be a real hard battle.

"My prediction is: If we can survive this group, everything will be possible for us."

Germany, who were not fancied before last year's World Cup but reached the final, will meet the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Latvia in Group D of the June 12-July 4 tournament in Portugal.

The Germans struggled in the qualifiers but as their record of three wins in both the World Cup and European championship shows, they generally do well in tournaments.

"I'm glad we got the big showdown out of the way first with the Netherlands," said Beckenbauer, referring to Germany's opening group match on June 15. "There's no messing about with the Netherlands. There's only matches that make history."

It was still unclear whether Germany would play friendly against the Netherlands scheduled for February 18. But Germany's SID news agency quoted German officials as saying the chances the match would take place were fading.

"The trend is headed towards cancelling," a source said.

Germany have other friendlies scheduled against Belgium in Cologne on March 31 and away to Romania on April 28.

They will begin their training camp for Portugal on May 24 with friendlies against Malta in Freiburg on May 27, Switzerland in Basel on June 2 and Hungary in Kaiserslautern on June 6.