When I was a boy, there were free TVs. And since I lived in Rome, on Sunday evening there was Night Goal. It was broadcast on a small Lazio broadcaster that was popular at the time. He challenged none other than the Sports Sunday, which was like having mass in the parish to coincide with the Pope’s Christmas mass. Yet many preferred Night Goal.
In its own way it was a pioneering program: a program for football lovers. For all those who in a goal, but even more so in a missed goal, read the lines of a poem. The meaning of life. The demiurge of Night Goal it was Michele Plastino, who among other things had the skill to launch several excellent journalists. Between these, Sandro Piccinini, who took off from there becoming one of the most popular commentators on all the different platforms on which we have seen football matches in these thirty years. The other night it debuted on Amazon Prime, for the final of the European Super Cup. “Perfect debut”, commented many, as if from those who deliver any package to you anywhere with chronometric precision you could expect a some dose of improvisation. And then: always very good Piccinini. Sure, why should it ever change. Bravo was, good remains. On private TV, digital terrestrial, satellite or streaming, it does not change.
Epperò the way of following football is changing and we are changing. Streaming football is the great opportunity of this country to catch up with digital. Finally, those who could not find a reason to make a subscription to the ultra-broadband, fixed or mobile, will do it and with that connection will discover that you can do a lot of other things besides seeing the matches of the next Serie A championship and a good part of the Champions League. But we’ll have to hurry. Hurry up to bring the ultra-broadband where there is not yet, we talked about it in this space a few days ago: small villages, especially in the South, especially in the mountains, still isolated. And we must hurry to bridge the digital skills gap that many millions of Italians still have, especially from 60 years upwards, who have lived with an elementary or middle school diploma. For many of them, digital remains a mystery. The world we live in seems incomprehensible to them. AND Sandro Piccinini would still follow him on local TV where now they only sell pots and tarot cards.
Football is one great opportunity, but no one should be left behind.
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