Solano, whose CV also includes time at Aston Villa and West Ham, is that increasingly rare species, a high-profile former top-flight footballer happy to illuminate the lower leagues in the twilight of his career.
After just six league starts in each of the past two seasons - at Leicester then Hull - Solano, who went from playing football on the streets of Lima to winning 95 caps for his country, is relishing his weekly involvement with the League One side.
"Last year when I was at Hull I didn't play much and, especially when you get older, you try to play as much as possible before you retire. I am glad to play every weekend for 70, 80 minutes, sometimes 90.
"I have been at a high level of football and maybe some players would say no but the main thing for me is playing football," says Solano, who, at 36, still cuts an impressively lean figure in his blue training gear.
It is not often you can write that there are only two degrees of separation between Hartlepool and Diego Maradona, but when Wadsworth praised the Peruvian's "twinkle toes" after his first goal for the team against Bury on September 17, he unconsciously evoked the moment Maradona named his then team-mate El Maestrito (The Little Master) following his Boca debut.
The next week Solano struck a trademark free kick in a victory over Bournemouth and, although seventh-placed Hartlepool lost their unbeaten record against Sheffield Wednesday last Saturday, his presence has certainly caused a stir around a club that has never risen above the third tier: "National media descend on in-form Pools" was a headline on Hartlepool's website in the build-up to their fixture at Notts County.
How long Solano himself continues is a question Wadsworth raised this week, suggesting he may go on beyond this campaign. Yet right now Solano has other plans, with a mooted farewell match in Lima next May, to which he hopes to entice ex-Newcastle colleagues Alan Shearer and Michael Owen.
"I would love to have them if possible."
Moreover, he is coaching the under-11s at Newcastle while working towards his Uefa B licence.
Solano's love affair with the North-east started inauspiciously, with Dalglish replaced by Ruud Gullit soon after his arrival in 1998. Yet he flourished under the "fantastic" Robson. He recalls fondly the "great balance" of the side that Robson took to the Champions League's last 16 in 2002-03, citing Shearer and Gary Speed's experience and example, and the "fresh legs" of Kieron Dyer and Craig Bellamy.
"Newcastle is a great club and for me, it was a part of my life," he says. The city, too. "The town is so lively, every night - it is difficult for the players, especially when you're a young lad and there is so much temptation in the town. But, in general, people are really friendly."
Solano has known difficulties, with the break-up of his marriage and a battle this year against a bankruptcy order - the product, he says, of a "misunderstanding [over mortgage payments] when I left the country" in 2008 to play for Greek club Larissa, and then Universitario in Lima.
Yet his affection for the area is enduring. The youngest child in a family of nine, Solano still has three siblings living in Newcastle and, given how he has embraced the place, it is tempting to ask his take on Carlos Tevez's discontent in Manchester.
"I don't know what's going on exactly," he says of Tevez, albeit while underlining just why millionaire footballers should not moan too loudly. "We have got the best facilities of any immigrant people coming to this country looking for a job without people helping them."
When Ricky Villa first landed at Tottenham in 1978, he would visit a priest each week simply for the chance to chat in Spanish. Solano's solution to the empty afternoons was to resume the trumpet lessons he had begun as a boy. Before long he was taking a trumpet into Newcastle's training ground to make mischief: "[Robson] would pull the team together before we started training and I would be hiding and when he started talking, I started blowing. 'Who's bloody there?"'
Now he plays in a band, the Geordie Latinos. "Half of the band is from Latin America - Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Peru. The rest are Geordie guys," he explains. "It is good to get away from football. The last gig we played was in the festival here in Newcastle in the summer."
From St James' Park to Victoria Park, it is the breadth and depth of support he appreciates most about English football.
"It is amazing how many clubs and teams [generate] passion - it doesn't matter which division, whether it's League One, League Two, Conference or the Premier League. You see it through the fans - people all their lives getting ready for the match every weekend."
- INDEPENDENT
