John Arne Riise has taken his seat for an interview with Liverpoolfc.tv but our cameras are not yet rolling.
The 30-year-old is wearing a white cap and a good lathering of suntan lotion, necessary precautions at this time of year in the Algarve, where celebrities and footballers are competing in the Steven Gerrard Foundation golf tournament.
There isn't a cloud in the sky and the prevailing silence is broken only by the metallic ping of club on ball and the occasional whine of a golf buggy. But serenity is about to be interrupted.
The tune is instantly familiar to any Liverpool fan. The words are too. You'd probably even recognise the singer. It is DJ Spoony who begins wailing the Kop's adaptation of Bruce Channel's Hey Baby, the one which enquires how Riise scored THAT goal. Another golfer joins in and soon Ginge (as his former teammates call him) is singing and clapping along, his face smothered by glee.
In that moment it becomes apparent how fondly he remembers Liverpool fans and his seven years on Merseyside, and over the next half an hour this feeling and his disappointment at leaving will be alluded to in almost every one of his answers.
"I do miss the city and the fans," says Riise, speaking a few weeks before completing a move from Roma to Fulham. "When I left (in 2008) I was sad, I was disappointed - not only at Rafa, at that time, but also with myself because I didn't do as much as I could have done to stay longer.
"When you've been somewhere for seven years you get so comfy. I was too happy with my position and I didn't work as hard as I could. I was too settled, I didn't think I had to work that hard. I regret that now - hopefully I won't regret it too much.
"I didn't want to go. I had a chat with (Rafael) Benitez. He said to me straight out that next year he was going to buy another left-back and my future was not there. It was quite straightforward and I respected that he was honest and told me so I could sort things out, because there was no way I could have stayed there another year and not played.
"He spent so much money on Andrea Dossena and I knew he was going to give him a lot of chances, even though I thought I was a better player than him.
"I don't think there have been many left-backs to replace me since then. Not many have adapted to the English game and last season there was (Paul) Konchesky and I don't think he played."
It is a decade since a 20-year-old Riise arrived on Merseyside from Monaco for a fee of approximately £4million tasked with improving a team that had just won a treble.
"I was a young lad at the time and nobody expected anything," he recalls. "It's harder when you go to a club and everyone expects you to play good. So I just went there with no pressure and just trying to do my stuff.
"I wanted to be respected for who I was. So in the first running session, I was the fittest player there, so I ran the most. And I tackled straight away because I wanted to be respected. And it worked. Both Steven Gerrard and Danny Murphy told me that's the reason I got into the group so quick because I worked so hard."
With his new teammates won over, Riise was about to find acceptance among the patrons of Anfield.
Contrary to popular belief, it was a strike at Goodison in September 2001 when he turned Steve Watson that first prompted Kopites to ask how he scored THAT goal - though an unstoppable free-kick against Manchester United six weeks later ensured it was sung with greater fervour.
"I didn't know that it was my song. It's hard to hear sometimes when the fans are singing because it's so loud and the accent is different," says Riise. "After the game they told me that so many people were singing this song about me and it just gave me this tremendous will to give something back, so I hope I did. There aren't many people who get their own song, especially at Liverpool.
"I think it (the Man Utd free-kick) was the best goal I ever scored - definitely the most important one in my career with Liverpool because it got me into the hearts of the Liverpool fans and it proved I could do stuff.
"It's been mentioned a few times after as well."
Ten years on from all this, having written his own little chapter in Liverpool history, Riise is back in English football having signed for Fulham, where he'll work under Martin Jol.
His first opportunity to join the London club came prior to Liverpool displaying their interest in the summer of 2001.
"I was very close to signing for Fulham but Gerard Houllier called my agent and said he wanted me," remembers Riise, who was invited for a tour of Anfield with Houllier and his assistant Phil Thompson.
"It was quite an easy choice when I saw the stadium and I knew the reputation of the club. Gerard taught me a lot and he gave me the confidence to play. He gave me another chance if I got something wrong, so I have a lot to thank him for."
Without Houllier's intervention, Riise's career would have taken a very different path - but the full-back is philosophical when he looks back on the Frenchman's departure from Anfield in 2004.
For Riise, the heart surgery which prompted an enforced sabbatical in 2001-02 was the beginning of the end of Houllier's reign.
"After he got sick things changed a little bit," says the 96-time Norway international.
"At first it was quite a shock (when he came back for the Roma match in 2002) because he had changed so much during his illness, body-wise.
"I think it took him a while to get back to his normal self because after what he had gone through he had to take it slowly.
"I think every club needs a change sometimes and it was good for Liverpool. I didn't want him to go because I was happy with him but the club needed a change."
While Houllier was reputed to have a close, almost fatherly relationship with his players, Benitez is sometimes portrayed - rightly or wrongly - as a colder presence in the dressing room.
So what differences did Riise notice?
"It was quite similar, actually," he says. "He (Benitez) was very powerful, a very strong person and we won some trophies under him. He gave me the best trophy I could win as a club footballer, the Champions League, so he's a manager I'll never say anything bad about."
Winning a fifth European Cup had been inconceivable at the start of Benitez's first season in charge, even more so when results started going badly in the group stages, but an unforgettable victory over Olympiacos teed up a last 16 clash with Bayer Leverkusen. Juventus were next to be dispatched, stunned into submission early doors at Anfield. Then it was Chelsea, and in the words of Riise, no one expected Liverpool to prevail.
"I remember the official putting six minutes on the clock and it was the longest six minutes in the world," he recalls.
"The atmosphere was unbelievable. I was down in my underpants after the game because I gave everything to the fans. That night will never be forgotten and in the dressing room it was crazy."
A model pro on and off the pitch, Riise was a favourite among Liverpoolfc.tv journalists during his Anfield years because a/ he always turned up early, and b/ he usually had something interesting to say.
Today is no different, and the defender is happy to go wherever our questions take him. But it is only when the events of May 25, 2005 are mentioned that he becomes restless in his chair.
