Rangers remain upbeat despite the 2-0 reverse to Barcelona in the Camp Nou on Tuesday.
European destiny is still in Gers' hands
Rangers remain upbeat despite the 2-0 reverse to Barcelona in the Nou Camp on Tuesday.
The Old Firm side were overwhelmed in the Champions League tie with the Spanish giants, going down to goals from Thierry Henry in the seventh minute and Lionel Messi in the 43rd.
But all is not lost as Rangers are still second in the Group E standings, a point clear of third-placed Lyon.
And they could reach the knockout stages with a game to spare if they beat Stuttgart in Germany in their next game, combined with a Barca victory over Lyon.
Midfielder Brahim Hemdani said: "It was a bad start for us with us conceding the early goal and we never managed to get back into it.
Deserved
"They deserved the victory for the way they played and we tried our best but it wasn't enough.
"Still, we are in a good position in the group and we knew that even before we played that it would not be the end if we lost.
"We will have to get the points against Stuttgart. We are still confident that we will go through and the situation is in our hands."
Defender Alan Hutton was also looking at the positives, saying: "It was a hard game, we knew it would be tough as Barca are one of the best teams in the world. Even so, there are a lot of positives we can take out of the game.
Fantastic
"It is a fantastic stadium to play in, playing in front of 100,000 fans, even though most of them were not behind us."
And his defensive colleague Carlos Cuellar poured scorn on those who believe Rangers were hampered because of the standard of the SPL.
He said: "There are always one or two teams like Barca in any league who are that much better than the rest and I don't think that it is (due to) a lack of competition domestically that we struggled to compete.
"We knew it was going to be a very difficult game and then it was made worse by the early goal."
