I get it, sort of. Your favorite team wins the big game by being the absolute best at putting whatever sized ball in a pre-determined location that we arbitrarily assign value to, and the world seems a little brighter. Less cruel. Maybe like a place you could bring a child into after all. There’s revelry in the streets, or just in your living room, and you want to celebrate.

On May 6, 2009, there was just such a celebration in Catalonia, Spain when Andrés Iniesta scored a last-minute goal for Football Club Barcelona (Barça) against Chelsea FC, moving Barça into the UEFA Champions League final. Nine months later, the media reported a 45 percent increase of births in the region.

That was a bit of an exaggeration, according to a new study in the British Medical Journal, but the birth rate did spike after the season-making goal—by 16 percent. That’s still a lot of babies Iniesta could conceivably (sorry) take credit for.

Researchers analyzed the births in two central Catalonia hospitals nine months after the goal (February 2010). “Josep Guardiola, FC Barcelona’s coach from 2008 to 2012, was born in this region…so it seemed fair to assume that the population might have a heightened level of enthusiasm for Barça,” the study reads.