Can Guus please manage the Socceroos in the World Cup?

Guus Hiddink has agreed to manage Turkey, with an initial two year contract to Euro 2012, and then an option for two additional years to the 2014 World Cup. In accepting this deal, he's turned his back on Chelsea, Liverpool, Juventus and host of other clubs who are on the look-out for a new manager.

It seems like Guus Hiddink likes international football. In the last eight years, I think he's only managed Chelsea and PSV, and Chelsea was only a part-time job. In the meantime, he's managed South Korea, Australia, Russia and now Turkey. He's travelled the world, been paid handsomely and been rewarded extravagantly, met a lot of nice people and done a lot of nice things. He's got a really cushy job that only requires him to work very hard every two years. If you weigh that up against the day-to-day stress of managing a top club, I would be opting for a international managing job as well.

Still, I can't help but wonder if the FFA has missed a step. I realise we're committed to Pim Verbeek, and he's done a great job for us, but couldn't we have tried to get Guus back for the World Cup? It would've been awesome. Our perspective World Cup squad's hardly changed in the past four years, so why not go back to the same manager? And Guus wouldn't mind - he loves the World Cup and I'm sure he's disappointed not to be part of it this year.

It's probably not too late. Hiddink's got a contract with Russia until the end of the World Cup. He doesn't start his contract with Turkey until then. So all we've got to do is buy up that empty contract space from Russia. Hiddink's on about £120,000 a week, so what's the chance that they'd rent him out for say, £60,000 a week? There's about 4 or 5 months until the World Cup, so it'll be about £1.2m to hire him if we were to pay £60,000 a week. I think we can afford that.

Let's make it happen.