Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink insists Celtic will 'fight like lions' to keep their Champions League dream alive in Barcelona in a fortnight's time.
The Scottish champions produced a brave performance against the Catalan giants in the first leg of the last-16 tie at Celtic Park on Wednesday but were ultimately outclassed by a far superior team.
The home side twice took the lead through Vennegoor of Hesselink and Barry Robson but those goals were cancelled out by Lionel Messi and Thierry Henry before Messi helped himself to the winner late on.
Celtic know a massive task now awaits them in the Nou Camp on March 4 but Vennegoor of Hesselink has refused to give up hope of a shock result.
He said: 'It's the Nou Camp and it's going to be very difficult to play there against a world-class team, but we will go over there and fight like lions and see what happens.
'Maybe we can also score over there - anything can happen in football.'
If Celtic's run in the tournament is about to come to an end, the Dutch striker believes he may have just faced the eventual winners of the Champions League this season.
He said: 'If we don't qualify, I hope they win. You like to see good football and they are a good footballing team. We have a lot of respect for them and we know the quality they have and you have to take your hat off to that.
'They are the best team we've come up against in this competition. They were brilliant at times. It wasn't just the strikers, the midfielders also did some amazing stuff.
'Sometimes it was difficult to play against them and that's a compliment to them.'
He added: 'Getting the opening goal was important and then to lose in a home game in Europe was tough. They really turned it on. You saw the class of their players towards the end of the game and they got the goal.
'We went into the dressing room 2-1 up at half-time and it was a good feeling. Maybe it wasn't the best football but it's the result that matters.
'We hoped we would be a little bit lucky but it didn't happen and they finished very well and that's down to the quality of their players.'
Gary Caldwell gifted Barcelona their second goal when his poor clearance fell straight to Ronaldinho, who set up Henry for an impressive finish.
'It was very difficult,' the Celtic defender admitted. 'They are an excellent team and they caused us lots of problems. They scored three goals which we couldn't afford to let them do in Europe at home.
'In the first half I thought we did well and we caused them a few problems and it was just disappointing to lose the goals in the end and lose the game.
'In the first half, although they were playing well and causing us problems, we dealt with it and we contained it a lot. But, in the second half, we gave the ball away a lot cheaper and caused problems for ourselves. They are top players and they punish you.'
