I would say so. This was an absolutely gutting loss, my most painful as a soccer fan. And I didn't even watch the game; just fast forwarded on my DVR.
I wrote a long piece on how awful this Celta game was. Appropriately enough, it was sacrificed to the Internet gods. So instead I will rant about Murphy's Law: everything that could have gone wrong did, which is how the polemica occurred.
- Javi Venta was hurt. With him on the field, Botelho would not have gotten behind our right back.
- Valverde subbed in Angel Lopez. If Eguren had come on and Marcano had moved to right back, he would have been in position.
- Angel's foul occurred outside the box. This much is clear from the replays, even if by a small margin. Goalline officials, anyone?
- The "foul" may not have been a foul. I saw a number of replays and could not determine if Angel made contact with Botelho.
- The referee Fernandez Borbalan was not in good position. He was well behind the play and thus could not see where Botelho fell, assuming there was contact.
- Diego Lopez should have made the save. Awful penalty by Trashorras, but it looked like our goalkeeper was too eager and palmed the ball down into the ground and behind him. Two hands on the ball and we are moving on to the 1/4 finals.
In the end, Valverde, Angel Lopez, and Diego Lopez combined to seal the fate of Villarreal CF in the 2009-10 Copa del Rey. 4 matches against lower-division opposition, 3 goals scored. That's all you need to know. It's even odds if we would have beaten Recreativo Huelva, but we sure could have used the money. And sparing ourselves from the embarrassment of losing to a team our B squad defeated 0-2 in Vigo. Just shameful.