After its winter break, the European Champions League resumed play last week. It’s now the knockout stage, where just one slip-up means goodbye to the tournament and to millions of dollars of lost income.

That pressure shows up on the field as defensive caution, which means that extravagant goal scoring is unlikely at this stage of the tournament. In last week’s eight games, 19 goals were scored, an average of just under 2.4 a game. That’s not bad by today’s miserly standards, but 11 of those goals were scored in three games, leaving the other five games with an average of only 1.6 each.

Probing a bit further, of the 19 goals, only eight were scored by forwards. And of the forwards who did score, only one – Frenchman Sylvain Wiltord of Lyon – was a European. The other marksmen were Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), Inter’s Obafemi Martins (Nigeria), AC Milan’s Hernan Crespo (Argentina), Barcelona’s Maxi Lopez (Argentina), Bayer Leverkusen’s Franca (Brazil), and the Peruvian Claudio Pizarro, who netted twice for Bayern Munich.

For once, the statistics tell a straightforward story. There is no need here for sophisticated interpretations. European soccer needs skillful attacking players, and its top clubs increasingly turn to Africa and South America in their search for goal-scorers.

Why? Some believe it is nothing more than supply and demand at work. The number of outstanding attacking players has always been limited, and European countries no longer produce enough to satisfy the demands of their growing number of wealthy clubs. So the clubs are obliged to look overseas.

There is also the financial argument: Foreign players are cheaper to purchase (because African and South American clubs are chronically short of money) and are satisfied with lower wages than the Europeans.

Both explanations have some truth to them, but the real reason can surely be reduced to one word: quality.

Goal scoring is often referred to as a knack, rather than a skill, and the word is convenient because it pre-empts analysis: Either a player has the knack or he doesn’t. The term is also, as it happens, a remarkably accurate one.

While the goal scorer needs to refine several skills – strength, speed, ball control, a strong shot with either foot, good heading ability, bravery, and so on – those qualities are required of all good players. The goal scorer also needs another set of skills, much more personal skills, the ones that add up to the knack.

His natural habitat is the opposing penalty area, where most of his goals will be born. So he needs penalty-area awareness, and quickness and coolness.

There is much talk in soccer of “creating space” – the phrase usually refers to players who race off, away from the ball, hopefully taking an opposing player with them and opening up an area for a teammate to exploit. It is a questionable concept at best, particularly when applied to the penalty area, which is always crowded, and where defenders invariably outnumber forwards.

Space is there, but in minuscule, momentary amounts, and it is in those tiny areas, those fractions of a second that the true goal scorers shine. Anticipation, speed of movement, deception, and the finishing touch – be it a thunderous shot or a gentle lob over a goalkeeper – must converge in a fraction of a second, and they have to be performed under the threatening pressure of opposing defenders.

A thrilling example of a deadly goal scorer at work came in Wednesday’s Barcelona-Chelsea game in the Nou Camp. Barcelona had given up a goal to Chelsea after 33 minutes, and for over half an hour had been hammering away at the Chelsea defense and getting nowhere.

Things changed when Barcelona sent in Argentine substitute Maxi Lopez in the 67th minute. A Barcelona player for a mere two months, Lopez said he was told by coach Frank Rijkaard to “run around and create space” for the other, more experienced Barcelona players.

Which is not quite what happened. Lopez had been on the field for only four minutes when his goal-scoring instincts took over. For two or three seconds, he had no thought of running around to create space for others, and the brutal selfishness of the goal scorer took over. Lopez darted into the penalty area, controlled the ball, and turned around the experienced Chelsea defender William Gallas with one quick, slick, movement. Then, for the briefest moment, he had the half-yard of space he needed to hammer a right-foot shot into the Chelsea goal.

Lopez, you should know, is only 20 years old. He has virtually no experience of European soccer, which is allegedly so different, so much faster, so much more physical than the game he formerly played in Buenos Aires with River Plate.

Maybe, but Lopez was able to make light of all those possible drawbacks because he has the scoring knack, and he also displayed that other vital quality, the catalyst that unleashes the knack – a massive, cocky confidence in his abilities. What Lopez did in scoring his first-ever goal for Barcelona had to be done instantly without a second’s hesitation.

Maxi Lopez grew up in South America, where – particularly in Argentina and Brazil – there is, in effect, a cult of the goal, where television and radio commentators shriek the word Gol! and prolong it into a 15- or 20-second cry of almost sexual ardor. Could it be that this love affair with goals is why South America produces so many top goal scorers and Europe – where tactics and team play are rated above individuality – does not?

For my money, yes, it definitely could. Goal-scoring qualities may be inborn, but they need to be developed, to be encouraged in a young player. No – that is not quite right. The vital thing is that the goal-scoring knack not be interfered with, that spontaneity and selfishness not be crushed by over-coaching.

South American coaching allows the goal scorer to develop. This is also true, probably to an even greater degree, in Africa, where organized coaching at young ages is only just beginning to get a hold on player development.

My opinion, yes – but evidently backed up by European coaches’ signings of South American and African forwards, and further confirmed by the success of those players in the Champions League.