IT didn't take long for Liam Brady to bring Giovanni Trapattoni to his knees.
Brady had just become one of Trapattoni's players at Juventus and was keen to get settled into his apartment in Turin.
Home comforts to the Dubliner meant music. On one away trip to Rotterdam with Ireland, he nipped out on his own to catch a Neil Young gig.
And he'd brought crates of his beloved LPs with him to Italy.
Horslips, Thin Lizzy, Bob Dylan, Rory Gallagher, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen...
"I love showmen, and I love footballers that are showmen too. It was probably part of my own make-up.
"I like Rod Stewart, Phil Lynott, Dylan, in his own way. Top showmen. John Giles would tell you that it's just about winning, but he used to strut like a peacock, spraying the ball around."
Brady and his wife, Sarah, had found a place they liked in Turin, but a finishing touch was needed.
So a shopping trip was arranged to get a state of the start hi-fi system.
Brady could speak no Italian, Trapattoni could speak no English, but the manager went along to help out his player.
They found one to his liking, and then there was another problem. Setting it up.
"It's a story I like to tell because it shows how kind and professional he was,'' said Brady.
"There was an instruction booklet but it looked like technical drawing to me. I couldn't make head nor tail of it.
"So Trap just gestured 'leave it to me'. I'll never forget it. There he was, down on his hands and knees, fiddling with knobs and leads. Wires everywhere.
"That was one of my first real introductions to Giovanni Trapattoni.
"He went through my records afterwards and was looking for classical music. He told me to get some and listen to it after training to relax. It was down to him that I started to buy classical records."
Only a couple of months earlier, Brady had been on the Arsenal team bus heading to the FA Cup final against West Ham with Luke Kelly's unmistakable voice rasping in his ear.
It was a reflection of the make-up of that Gunners team. Seven Irish regulars - four from the south, three from the north.
And the manager, Terry Neill, was from Belfast.
So a ritual started where The Dubliners soundtracked their trips to big matches.
But, in May, 1980 - when Arsenal lost both the FA Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup finals - Brady knew that ritual was coming to an end for him.
"I wanted to win things. Arsenal had a level of ambition that wasn't matching the Liverpools and Man Uniteds,'' he said.
"We had great Cup runs but we were never going to win the League. I felt, and Frank Stapleton felt it too, that we were taken for granted as part of the furniture, because we'd grown up as kids there.
"A couple of years before our contracts expired, they should have been coming to us, but they never did."
The rules in Italy had changed so that clubs could sign foreign players for the first time in 16 years.
It was a move that would make Serie A the best league in the world in the 1980s - a magnet for players of the quality of Diego Maradona, Zico, Graeme Souness, Michel Platini, Ruud Gullit.
Brady knew he was on Juve's radar but as part of a shortlist. The summer wound on and it was only at the end of July that the deal was sealed.
It's 40 years next week since he moved to Italy and it was quite an arrival.
When he landed at Turin Airport with his wife, Sarah, he was greeted by an army of bianconeri fans, who hoisted him up on their shoulders and paraded Brady through the departure lounge.
"I didn't expect that at all. It was quite weird looking out the window of the plane and seeing the crowd gathered,'' he said.
"There were a lot of English tourists on board and they must have been wondering what the hell was going on.
"There were fans out on the tarmac and all around the plane. They must have thought the plane was going to be hijacked."
Remarkably, Brady - Footballer of the Year in England in 1979 - was on just £200 a week with Arsenal.
He knew that moving to the continent would triple his wages.
"Kevin Keegan had gone to Hamburg and done very well there. That was where I thought I'd be going too and had been learning German for a few months,'' he said.
"But there were offers from English clubs too. I met Brian Clough to talk about Nottingham Forest - Forest had just become European champions.
"I met Dave Sexton, who was then in charge of Manchester United. He came over to Dublin to meet me. And Arsenal wanted me to go to United because they'd get more money, but the likeliest move seemed to be Bayern Munich.
"It looked like it was about to happen and then collapsed. That's when Juventus came in."
The summer dragged on, though, with nothing happened, and Brady actually posed for the official Arsenal squad photo for the 1980/81 season.
"So did Clive Allen, and he never played a game for Arsenal,'' said Brady.
"It was a strange one. Neill signed him from QPR but did a swap deal with Crystal Palace for Kenny Sansom a few weeks later."
The Bradys had their first child while in Italy, with Ella's arrival in 1983.
That strengthened the family bond with the country, and the bond remains decades later.
"Ella still goes back to see the people who looked after her as a baby, it's amazing,'' said Liam.
"She brings her children there. We still go back regularly too, not this year because of Covid-19.
"It's a great country, and it was a great experience. I love Italians. They love to travel, they read up about the world, they know about a lot of different things.
"They're different to the average person in Ireland or England.''
Brady had left Dublin for London at 15, and was now moving to another country at 24. But he wasn't fazed by embracing a new culture,.a new language.
Brady had studied French in school in Dublin for three years and he found that a help with the Italian grammar and some of the words.
Within four months, he understood much of the conversation around him. By the end of his first season, he was able to talk freely.
"I wasn't intimidated by going to Italy. It was something I wanted to do,'' he said.
"If I'd known what Italy was like, I might never have gone.
"They're very judgemental with their footballers, especially the foreign players. The press don't really give you a break. They can be very hard.
"I found that as I went along. Then I was let go by Juventus after winning two League titles in two years - I didn't expect that, but I found out that's what happens in Italy."
Early on, Brady got an indication of just how harsh Italian football culture is.
There was a buzz around all the new imported players, with plenty of excitement centred on Brady, Falcao at Roma, and Inter Milan's Herbert Prohaska.
For Brady's first Serie A game, Juve had to travel to Cagliari on the island of Sardinia.
"It was fucking boiling. The temperature was close to 40 degrees,'' he recalled.
"I struggled really badly, I really suffered in the heat. We were expected to win but drew 1-1, I didn't play well at all.
"I was sitting on the bus afterwards, mulling it over, when I heard one of the directors talking.
"Inter were the champions then and he asked how they got on. He was told they won easily. Then he was told that Prohaska had shone.
"I didn't have great Italian but I understood his reply - he mentioned Juve getting 'lo straniero sbagliato'. We got the wrong foreigner.
"That stuck with me. I was always keen to prove doubters wrong,'' he said.
"It was especially the case with those in England. A lot of them were going 'ah, he's only going to Italy for the money, he won't be able to hack it'. All this crap.
"There was a bit of petty jealousy because I'd chosen a different country to England.
"But I stayed in Italy for seven years which I think was a real achievement, because they only had one or two foreigners in each team."
That Juventus team would provide seven of the players that would win the World Cup with Italy in 1982.
Brady never looked out of place, but his time would come to an end in '82 when Juve's wealthy owner, Gianni Agnelli, did a solo run and decided he wanted Michel Platini.
Juventus already had two foreigners in Zbigniew Boniek and Brady. Two into three didn't go so the Irishman became the fall guy.
"I got a call and just felt like saying 'stick it up your ass, I'm not playing anymore','' he said.
"There were still three games to go. I wasn't serious about not playing. I was fed up but was always going to be professional about it."
Juve's last game was away to Catanzaro, who included a certain Claudio Ranieri.
The visitors needed a game to win and, late on with the scores level, got a penalty.
Brady stepped up. The man who was being pushed out the door buried it to win back-to-back titles for Juventus.
"It's mentioned a lot. Even still, people mention it,'' he said.
"It does irritate me that my time at Juventus is defined by that penalty.
"Over the course of two years, I made quite a contribution to winning both titles."
Some of the biggest names in English football tried their luck in Italy.
The biggest impact before Liam Brady was made by John Charles.
The Welshman won three titles with Juventus during his time in Serie A, and was also voted Footballer of the Year.
As part of that first wave of imports, Denis Law and Jimmy Greaves also arrived, but never settled.
Brady spearheaded a second wave in the 1980s. He was followed by Graeme Souness, Joe Jordan and Trevor Francis, as well as the unlikely figures of Luther Blissett and Mark Hateley.
Then the third wave came in the 1990s with high profile moves for Paul Gascoigne, David Platt and Paul Ince, among others.
But no import from the English league endured longer than Brady.
Charles lasted five years in Serie A and is second on the list, but Brady was there for seven.
After Juventus, he went on to Sampdoria and Inter Milan before finishing up at Ascoli.
"That was the only wrong move I made. Ascoli just wasn't the right fit,'' he said.
"I should have thought more about that one. Promises were made that weren't kept. I was never happy there.
"I didn't win any more silverware after Juve but played on some top teams.
"Sampdoria had just been promoted and we beat Juventus, Inter Milan and Roma in our first three games.
"We had Trevor Francis, a teenage Roberto Mancini, a lot of good players.
"With Inter, we really should have won the title. We came third and lost in the UEFA Cup semi-finals to Real Madrid.
"We had a top team. The best player I played against in Italy was Diego Maradona, but the best one I played alongside was Karl-Heinz Rummenigge at Inter. He was class."
