Should Russia repeat their run of four years ago and reach the Euro semi-finals that would be counted as a success said national captain and playmaker Andrei Arshavin.

The 31-year-old - who looks to have returned to form after going back to Zenit Saint Petersburg on loan from Arsenal earlier this year - was one of the stars of Euro 2008.

"I'd say that we should really repeat the level of our Euro achievement last time. In case we manage to reach the semi-final round of the event we all can count it a success," he said.

"First, it will be great to repeat our 2008 performance. But we know we will definitely need to beat some of the event's hotter favourites to achieve it."

The Russians - who last reached the final in 1988 as the then Soviet Union and lost to the Dutch - open their campaign against the Czech Republic on Friday in Wroclaw in Group A.

However, Arshavin said that their recent 3-0 win over Italy in a friendly had given the squad the shot in the arm it needed going into the tournament.

"The result of the friendly match with Italy boosted our fans' hopes ahead of the championship's start and all of our players also," said Arshavin.

"However, for a long time we have believed our team is capable of playing at this level.

"Many of us have gained that self-confidence even before the previous European championship. CSKA Moscow's and Zenit's UEFA Cup trophy wins (2005 for CSKA and 2008 for Zenit of which Arshavin played a leading role in the latter) boosted all of the country's players morale a great deal.

"Of course we suffered a serious blow when we failed to qualify for the 2010 World Cup but we managed to get back our self-confidence during the European championship qualifying campaign finishing top of our group."

Arshavin also said that he considered all four teams in the group - co-hosts Poland and Euro 2004 champioms Greece are the others - to be almost even in ability and predicted tough competition for the two quarter-final places on offer.

"It's hard to single out any of our group's teams although every squad have individually strong players in their line-ups.

"Petr Cech and Tomas Rosicky in the Czech team and the Borussia Dortmund trio in the Polish squad are all very skilled footballers, while the Greek team on top of everything are extremely dangerous at deadball situations.

"It will definitely be not easy to make it to the knockout round from our group."

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