TA DA! And heeeeeere's Giovanni! Into the book-lined RDS Concert Hall, on a bright sunny day, the Football Association of Ireland lowered an oppressively large banner bearing their emblem and, with much ado, introduced Giovanni Trapattoni, the latest daredevil to try his luck on the wall of death otherwise known as managing the Irish soccer team.
Giovanni came equipped with a translator but she was mute and redundant for most of the afternoon. This was an uno duce, una voce type of production and if very little of what was said was audible above the constant whirring of camera shutters, enough was heard to bear out Trapattoni's endearing opening admission that his English was weak.
His English was weak but his charisma was strong and though we only caught one word in three, he made more sense than his predecessor Steve Staunton and we nodded back enthusiastically and let ourselves be seduced by Don Giovanni.
Memories kept trespassing on previous coronation-style press conferences, which would eventually be counterpointed against the grisly and lonesome end the central participants came to, but this was slightly different.
Trapattoni got through the afternoon without uttering a cringe- worthy phrase like his predecessor's King Kong-like "I am the Gaffer" declaration and even his frank declaration of his own footballing pragmatism had a charm to it. "A beautiful game is for 24 hours in the newspapers; a result stands forever."
Trapattoni's charm and the steely strength of his character came across through all the proceedings. At 69, the new Irish manager radiates a confidence and energy that few in the room could have matched. And perhaps what impressed the most was his engagement with the job in hand and his polite indifference to whether or not people liked him. Having watched "20 to 30" DVDs of Irish games - he is being well paid but, at 69, isn't life too short for that? - he could rhyme off the names of as many Irish players as anyone present but he never resorted to buttering us up by pretending to like Guinness and the company of leprechauns.
The Irish players, a somewhat sheltered community who in recent years have been finding the rigours of international football to be an unwelcome intrusion into their busy lives, will face a far sterner examination of their commitment than they have so far encountered. Trapattoni merrily announced that Ireland are strong in every position and that he would be taking things from here. He gets his first chance to put pouty faces to lustrous names when he takes charge of a training camp in Portugal later this month.