Kroos happy to play role of provider for Germany

Toni Kroos, man of the match
My role was to bring our game out from the back. I want to get our most dangerous players on the ball in good positions and it worked well tonight. Hopefully I'll be able to continue in that vein.

All the Real Madrid players came into this tournament in great spirits after winning the Champions League. It's great for me to have been able to keep that winning feeling tonight but we're under no illusions – it was only the first game.

We need to be a bit cleverer if we want to win this tournament but I'm confident. I think we dominated the first 25 minutes or so but over 90 minutes you're always going to go through a spell where you don't have as tight a grip on things. Ukraine noticed that we weren't finding our passes and pressed us higher up the pitch, forcing a couple of mistakes. We got it together in the end, though.

Joachim Löw, Germany coach
It was an intense and fast-paced game. In the first half we had a few problems going forward, losing the ball and giving them the chance to counter but in the second half we did very well, keeping our shape and moving the ball about well. We dominated – it wasn't easy against a good Ukrainian defence but we found solutions and overall I'm very satisfied.

Ukraine were very good from set pieces – they really whipped them into the box and put men forward. We defended better in the second half and Bastian Schweinsteiger was delighted to make such a great comeback after so many weeks slogging to get back to fitness.

The Poland game is going to be decisive as both teams have won and the result of that one will shape how the group finishes. Obviously we have a lot of players out injured but I think the players who did play did a very good job. We were always able to transition from defence into attack.

Manuel Neuer is the best keeper in the world and I told him this the other day. For me, the captain's armband isn't that important – we've got Khedira, Schweinsteiger ... lots of leaders in the squad and Manuel is one of them.

Sami Khedira, Germany midfielder
It wouldn't be right if everything was perfect in the first game. I think when our opponents analyse this match they'll see our weakness, and that was when we lost the ball. When we did, we should have reacted quicker. Getting the ball from the defenders to the strikers wasn't good but we improved in the second half.

Mykhailo Fomenko, Ukraine coach 
We had to stop the Germans scoring and we weren't able to do that – we conceded two goals. Germany are like a machine. They are full of great players and my players knew they would be up against a team of very high quality.

Artem Fedetskiy, Ukraine defender 
We are disappointed with the result and the goals conceded but we were up against the world champions. We can do better and we wanted to keep it alive until the last minute. Unfortunately we opened up and conceded a second goal, which hurt. However, we have two games left in the group and we have to cheer up – it's only the start of the tournament.