Ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-1 draw against West Bromwich Albion today, the big rumor was that Erik Lamela was finally — finally! — going to be on the bench for a first team match, the first time we would’ve seen him in a match day 18 in over a year.

That didn’t happen. Lamela was left out of the squad, and a lot of Spurs fans on social media were either upset at Mauricio Pochettino for not including him, or worried that he had suffered a setback in his recovery from two hip surgeries.

It turns out, the answer might have been a lot simpler — Lamela missed the match to welcome into the world his new baby. Erik posted a photos and a video of him with his significant other and newborn son in the hospital on his Instagram page, and the whole of Spurs social media went D’AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Lamela's absence explained: his first child was born! pic.twitter.com/Zp0FXH6LK3 — Sean (@SeanDZWalsh) November 25, 2017

Cuando la vida te cambia en un segundo ... te amo hijo mío cuanto necesitaba conocerte ♥️♥️♥️ Gracias Dios por esta bendición When your life changes in one second ♥️♥️♥️ Thanks god A post shared by Erik Lamela (@eriklamela) on Nov 25, 2017 at 9:23am PST

There’s football, and then there are TRULY magical moments like those. I’d say that’s a pretty darn good reason to miss a football game. !Feliz cumpleaños, Lamelito! Can we sign him to the academy yet, and can he play striker?