Ring ring. Ring Ring. Ring Ring. The mobile. "Yo! Caro mio! Como esta?" Robbie Keane. Never a good moment to talk to Robbie Keane. I step out of my bath of asses milk, dispatch the babe who has been feeding me the grapes and tell the masseuse to come back later. These small things help when you're missing the Leinster football final.

Robbie has news. He's shouting down the blower. Guess where I am? Guess where I am? I can only think to answer: Rumours nightclub. Anyway he's in Italy, riding his vespa on the fast-track to success. His news is like going to a parent-teacher meeting and hearing that the primary school has dispatched your sprog to Oxbridge, because he got all his spellings right. Kind of exciting , but mainly worrying. Robbie is wonderful but, but, but . . . .

"Do you think you're mature enough for this Robbie?" He sighs theatrically and I know he's going to remind me that he's read the last Harry Potter book practically all the way through. In hardback. He's still grappling with some of the concepts but has told me that it would be an honour to play quiddish for his country some day. Every kid dreams of pulling on that jersey and playing quiddish he says.

I don't mean to hurt his feelings here, but on big occasions, and in Italy (Latino fusspots!) they have nothing but big ones, Robbie tends to lash out and get all petulant. Let's just say you could see him spending a lot of time waiting, sulking in his trailer before announcing that he's ready for his close up now Mr de Mille. (The de Mille's still own Inter? Must check at research stage of column).

Then, there's the goalscoring thing. Coventry was a decent school. He had nice little friends there. They were taking time with the kid, encouraging him (as if he needed confidence) and overlooking the fact that he doesn't seem able to score anywhere except at Highfield Road.

He was progressing just about quickly enough that people were perhaps going to stop remembering the casual disdain with which the Arsenal defence put him in their pockets when they met Robbie in his Wolves incarnation.

He thinks Italy will suit his game. So does his agent and his bank. "Does the word cattenaccio mean anything to you Robbie?" He tells me not to worry, he's had all the injections and he's being careful. I worry. "Listen," he says. "I'm going to be the new Liam Brady."

"Or the latest Ronnie O' Brien. The new David Connolly. We'll have to send a search party. The country will have to impose sanctions on Italy to get you back in the end."

I tell him there are cultural hurdles to overcome. The difficulties in procuring lager tops. The lack of opportunities to "slam" team-mates in the tabloids. As the Milanese are no doubt aware, their city is no Coventry.

The Last Supper is just a painting in Milan. It's a nightclub in Coventry. La Scala is an opera shop in Milan. It's a three screen cinema in Coventry. They let you bring your fish and chips in to the late show. No contest.

There are other differences. As the explorer Rushie noted, late in the last century, Italian "is like another language". Indeed Rushie was the first to go further and expound the corollary theory that Italy "is like a foreign country".

Unless you are Italian of course, interjects Robbie. I tell him that's what he'll be if he doesn't make it. An Interject. Inter Reject. I fill him in on the history of the fatal shore. Remember Des Walker? No. My point exactly.

Rushie's contemporary Incey in his Epistle to the Tabloidians explored the exasperating difficulties in finding nice houses around the notorious lake area in Milan. Italy's third world reputation for food, drink and adequate domiciles saw Incey finally return - broken and haunted by what he'd seen - to Liverpool.

The philosopher Gazza, who spent some time in the cultural wasteland of Rome, pined for the more subtle flavours of Newcastle and the opulent north east of England. "Italy eets all reet like," he said finally. "But not for me and me mates like."

Wise words born of harsh experience. Robbie. Consider also the words of Rosemary Clooney: "Take some advice paisano. Learn to mambo Italiano." Well spoken and beautifully put, Rosemary. Ms Clooney had already observed that "all the calibresi do the mambo like crazy".

Is this mambo-crazy world a suitable environment for a child from Tallaght? "Just remember," I say suddenly. "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore." Robbie says that Amore left on a Bosman. "For fresh challenges."

"Let me elaborate," I say slowly. "When the world seems to shine, like you've had too much wine, that's amore. Getting my drift?"

"Touch of the Jimmy Five Bellies. Jimmy's a good lad at heart. So was Amore. The fans never saw the best of him." "No, no. Listen up Homey." I call him Homey because he only scores at homey. "You need to get yourself a sensible girlfriend who'll mark you tighter than Gentile would. A culchie if necessary. A nurse. If she can look like Maldini and mark you like Gentile you will have done well and you might survive Italy."

I'm wasting my sweetness. He's gone. I check the wire services. Ahhhhh! Already young Robbie shows signs of mastering the universal language. From Italy his first press statement sends best wishes to the entire Midlands area of England, reminding one of the old Not the Nine O'Clock News joke where the newsreader looks up gravely and says "And now a word for our viewers in the Midlands." Pause. "It must be awful for you . . ."

Anyway, he gives his regards to the grieving Midlands. When they make a musical of Robbie's life that will be one of the key numbers. He continues, evoking an adolescence spent juggling a rag ball with oul segocias like Bang Bang, Forty Coats, Behan and Bono . . .

"When I used to kick a ball around the back streets of Dublin I could never have imagined that one day I would pull on the legendary blue and black shirt of Inter Milan. It's every kids dream come true." Bravo! Cliche in any language would smell as sweet. I have nothing to teach him. Ciao Roberto! Ciao!