Unfortunately for me, I live a long way from Stadio Olimpico. Therefore when I see an AS Roma match, it's on TV. And little enough of that in the last year.

Serie A broadcast rights in Australia are held by Qatari multinational company beIN Sports. Two years ago this was only available via streaming service Kayo, a subsidiary of Foxtel and thus News Corporation. My personal view is that the company is unethical scum, but they were the only way that I could see Serie A and Formula 1 so I reluctantly subscribed for an amount that I regarded as excessive. (Though I concede that it wouldn't be excessive, had anyone also wanted to watch all of the other irrelevant cr@p that they broadcast. However I for one have no real interest in Rugby League, boxing, UFC or frapping darts.)

So LAST year, I went to watch the first AS Roma match, only to find... Kayo had lost the rights to Serie A a few months earlier. Did they notify their members, especially the ones who had Serie A clubs favourited in their profile? No, they just kept taking the money. But then, "opaque" is a charitable description of how Kayo provides information about the services that it has... and doesn't.

Streaming broadcasters have learnt nothing from the music piracy of the 1980s and 90s. People will pay a reasonable amount for the convenience of getting what they want in the one place and ensuring that the people who create content are adequately remunerated. But now streaming services are fragmenting, and everybody wants their piece of the pie. Instead of having a single service where you can get multiple programs or events, it's $15 a month here, $20 a month there, $16 a month somewhere else and before you know it you're paying into 3 figures a month for your various streaming services. To get both Formula One and Serie A on the one service was acceptable if still somewhat overpriced, but to pay double the amount to 2 separate suppliers, neither of which I would regard as being particularly ethical in their business practices, was a subscription too far. I lost interest in Formula One because it was going to be another season of "how much will Verstappen win by?", and then the idiot who is running Ferrari decided to dump an excellent driver with a future for a politically loudmouthed has-been. As a result, I dumped Kayo and really couldn't be bothered subscribing to beIn and paying a vastly excessive amount for a single sport. Especially considering that beIn did not have the rights to all of A.S. Roma's matches, and to see the other series matches would require yet more subscriptions with yet more suppliers for yet more money.

And the dimwits who run streaming companies are wringing their hands wondering why people turn to piracy. But I digress.

The key point is that a TV broadcast usually focuses just on the ball and who has it. However when you watch a match live you get to see the whole field; where other players are, where they're moving to, what passing angles are available, what attack may be building up and what defence may be falling into place to stop it.

And thus it was that I really noticed, for the first time, our defender Dean Huijsen and where he fitted into the overall scheme of things. That's him here, driving the ball into the opposition's half, and we'll talk about him in the next shot.