???
Ange Postecoglou is a target for a Chinese Super League club, with mounting suggestions the cashed-up outfit is set to make an approach for the Socceroos coach.
While he has almost 18 months to run on his five-year contract with Football Federation Australia, Postecoglou is emerging as one of the top items on a shopping list for at least one wealthy Chinese club, who are unlikely to wait until he becomes a free agent before making their move.
Fairfax Media understands the club is trying to pry Postecoglou away from the Australian national team, despite the Socceroos being at the half-way stage of the final qualifying round for the 2018 World Cup.
Sources suggest the Asian Cup-winning coach has been closely monitored by the unnamed club - which has the financial clout to make an offer that would dwarf his current salary - in recent weeks.
Postecoglou's stocks in Asia are still soaring on the back of his success with the Socceroos, but it's his shrewd handling of an Australian team lacking recognised big-name players that's seen him become increasingly in demand.
Despite the absence of star names, Postecoglou won the Asian Cup with the Socceroos on home soil in January 2015, barely 15 months after taking charge of a squad that had just been humiliated in the dying days of Holger Osieck's reign with two 6-0 defeats at the hands of Brazil and France.
He has changed the culture, blooded new players, reinvigorated the squad and brought a sense of pride and belief to his players - something that is sorely needed at many well-resourced but under-achieving Chinese teams.
It seems unlikely that Postecoglou would take the bait at this stage of his career with World Cup qualification now reaching the crucial stage, the Confederations Cup on the horizon and the World Cup due in just over a year.
Postecoglou has made no secret of his ambition to not only lead Australia to a fourth consecutive World Cup appearance but to guide the Socceroos past the group stage and better their round-of-16 appearance in 2006.
But football is a brutal and pragmatic game, and it would be surprising if Postecoglou was not thinking of his future moves when his tenure with the national team expires, as it inevitably will. Every man has his price and the seemingly-limitless fortunes on offer in China could test Postecoglou's devotion to the cause of the national team.
While steadily growing in quality and rapidly leaping in profile, the Chinese Super League hasn't always been fondly viewed by Postecoglou, who suggested the overall standard isn't as high as Australia's top tier.
"But in the overall intensity and tempo, I'll be honest, I think the A-League is probably a little bit ahead of it at the moment, just in terms of the general level of the game," Postecoglou said last May.
What does appear certain, however, is that Postecoglou's tenure as coach of Australia is set end at the expiration of his deal that concludes after the 2018 World Cup in Russia, should the Socceroos qualify, with the next step of his coaching career all but certain to be abroad, having achieved all there is to in Australia.
He has made no secret of his desire to coach overseas in club football and, after the World Cup, could make strides towards becoming one of the few Australian coaches to ply their trade overseas.
Postecoglou will be nearly 53 when the next World Cup finishes. He has to be conscious that opportunities, while not drying up, start to close in for coaches who are in their mid 50s if they have not already proved themselves with big clubs in foreign leagues.
The national team is now facing a crucial series of games which will surely determine his fate.
If things went disastrously wrong in the next three qualifiers - away to Iraq in Tehran, and then home to the UAE in Sydney and Saudi Arabia in Adelaide - the Socceroos' chances of making the World Cup could be diminished, perhaps beyond recourse pending other results.
Australia are still favourites to progress with the majority of games at home, which would leave Postecoglou on track to achieve one of his career aims - taking his country to the World Cup finals and into the knock-out stages as a likely farewell to Australian football before making a big leap abroad.
