Jerome Boateng welcomed the return of Bastian Schweinsteiger to action as the Manchester United midfielder played the final 25 minutes of Germany's 2-0 friendly win over Hungary on Saturday.
The Germany captain made his first competitive appearance since March as Germany picked up a comfortable but not particularly impressive win in Gelsenkirchen.
"He's our captain and he's our metronome," Boateng told ZDF afterwards. "He calms our game down.
"He's certainly not 100% yet, but he's very important for us."
Schweinsteiger was also happy to get some minutes under his belt as Germany step up preparations for their first game of Euro 2016 against Ukraine on June 12.
"To get 25-30 minutes is pretty good," he said. "I wasn't expecting to get 90 minutes in my first game back.
"But I have been able to do already more in the run up to this European Championship than I managed two years ago prior to the World Cup."
Germany coach Joachim Low would not reveal whether Schweinsteiger will get more than just 25 minutes against Ukraine next weekend, though, saying only that he does not expect to name the same starting XI for all of his side's games in France.
"There's no such thing as a first-choice starting XI for this tournament," he said.
"We're probably going to need all of our players. Some of them still have a bit of catching up to do and Schweinsteiger is not in a rhythm yet of course.
"We'll have to take a closer look at (Mats) Hummels too, but the substitution of (Sami) Khedira was just a precaution.
"We're happy we kept a clean sheet and this win gives us stability and a good feeling for the coming week."
Germany head to their Euro 2016 base in Evian-les-Bains on Tuesday.
Source: PA
