The Dutch have been tipped as potential winners of the competition after storming to top spot in Group C with emphatic victories over Italy and France, and face Russia in tonight's third quarter-final for the right to face Italy or Spain in the last four.

Hamburg midfielder Van der Vaart, who started in both the convincing wins over the two 2006 World Cup finalists, is satisfied with proceedings so far but knows the real work begins now.

"Until now we have had a really good tournament," he said. "Now the tournament starts. If we lose against Russia we are out.

"People will say Holland played nice, but we want to win something, so we have to win (tonight).

"It will be a difficult match but we have a lot of self-confidence."

The 25-year-old was impressed with the Russian display on Wednesday, when Guus Hiddink's side beat Sweden 2-0 to clinch second place in Group D and a place in the quarter-finals.

"They played really well. It was unbelievable. They played really good, fast football.

"The star is (Zenit St Petersburg playmaker Andrei) Arshavin, a really good player. They attack really well so we have to be careful."

Van der Vaart and his team-mates will be looking to emulate the Holland team of 20 years ago who became European champions thanks to Marco van Basten's famous volley against the Soviet Union.

The Ajax youth academy product was five years old at the time and does not remember too much of events in 1988, but cheekily said while sitting at a pre-match press conference alongside Van Basten last night: "We still talk about the nice goal to win it... it was a little bit lucky I think!

"But we want to win this tournament - that was 20 years ago so it would be about time again."

The newly-laid pitch at Basle's St Jakob-Park was a cause for concern prior to Thursday's first quarter-final between Portugal and Germany, but Van Basten does not appear too concerned about it.

"I saw something on television yesterday, it didn't look very nice," he said.

"But on the other hand it's pretty good. The players of the game between Portugal and Germany didn't complain about it, and we just trained on it and I didn't hear any complaints from our players either so I think it's okay."