When FFA chief executive David Gallop presided over the farewell media conference of departing Socceroo coach Ange Postecoglou earlier this week he stressed that the organisation would not be hurried into appointing a replacement.
That's just as well, because depending on how things play out over the next few days, those in place at the head of the FFA - chairman Steven Lowy, his board and perhaps even Gallop - may not be in a position to make an appointment anyway.
The Australian game, which has had a convulsive week, could be faced with an even more volcanic seven days as the embattled chairman Lowy, scion of the billionaire clan which has controlled the game in this country for the past decade and a half, battles to retain his position.
In the shadows hovers FIFA, the sport's global regulatory body, which has threatened to take control of the Australian game should it not be convinced that proposed changes to the FFA's Congress broaden the body's base to be more reflective of the game as a whole rather than what opponents hold to be an unrepresentative cadre of rich and powerful people at the top.
There is an emergency general meeting due for next Thursday, when the next stage in this protracted political battle will be decided.
Any number of scenarios are possible - the most ironic of which would be FIFA dumping the board just 24 hours before it conducts its World Cup draw with Australia one of the nations waiting to be pulled out of the hat.
In the meantime, the FFA can only sit and wait and consider itself lucky that Postecoglou at least stayed on long enough to complete the job of World Cup qualification for them and that they don't have to rush to appoint a successor.
The next scheduled match isn't until March, which is just as well if there is a FIFA takeover and the game has to be run, even if only temporarily, by remote control from Zurich.
The rumour mill and the bookmakers agree that Graham Arnold, the Sydney FC coach, is the man most likely to step into the vacant post.
But there are myriad issues to be considered when the time comes for selecting a replacement by whoever is doing the choosing.
The main two are: A) whether the FFA want to continue along the same philosophical path Postecoglou has followed, and B) whether they want an Australian or a foreigner.
It's hard to see, in a PR and rational way, how they can't go local given the amount of support the powers that be gave to Postecoglou while he was in the job and, more tellingly, the way they publicly backed his vision.
Postecoglou was not just a coach, he was also an evangelist.
He spoke about a sense of Australian-ness, how a deep understanding of the local football culture was needed to really do the job properly, how the national team coach was not just a person who picked 11 players and set them up to get results, but was the figurehead of the sport to the nation at large.
Postecoglou ruffled their feathers - becoming soccer's very own "turbulent priest" as he set about instigating a reformation in the game and took administrators and many others out of their comfort zone.
Whether in the final analysis his demanding vision got too much for them - certainly there are suggestions that he felt he was being undermined at the end - there was certainly so much vocal support for everything that he promoted that the governing body would look hypocritical now were it not to appoint someone who would be a champion of the local game.
How much Postecoglou changed the image of Australian teams is brought home by an insight from former Socceroo stalwart and sometime captain Kevin Muscat.
Muscat played in good Australian teams, made up of players such as Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Mark Bosnich, Robbie Slater, Mark Schwarzer, Ned Zelic, Paul Okon, Stan Lazaridis, Tony Popovic, Craig Moore, John Aloisi, the Vidmar brothers and the young Mark Bresciano and Vince Grella. No-one would argue that crop were not, in the main, far superior to the talent pool that Postecoglou had to work with.
Yet Muscat last week reflected on the recent wins over Honduras and said: "I watched that game, saw us dominating every aspect of it, and I looked at Honduras and thought 'that used to be us.'
"We used to be like that in big games, World Cup qualifiers; getting men behind the ball, defending grimly, hoping to get lucky on the break, grab something from a set piece, hold out.
"Australia isn't like that now. It takes the game on, it looks to win matches and it doesn't matter who they are playing."
That is the Postecoglou cultural change, one that the powers that be backed.
To step away from it now would be a big change, a gesture that might seem to diminish the team and the players, be regarded as an admission that they don't have it in them to at least try to take on the best and let them know they are in a contest.
Financially the FFA would almost certainly prefer a low-cost option.
In my view they shouldn't be looking at shelling out mega salaries for big-name veterans anyway. The highest-paid national team coach in the world invariably is the England boss, and their record proves that spending big doesn't get you results.
It's easy to look back nostalgically at the Guus Hiddink big bang and think that could be replicated. The likelihood is that it would be a failure. Hiddink is 10 years older (he has just turned 71) and his record subsequently at international level has hardly been anything to write home about with the Netherlands, Russia and Turkey.
Arnold, like Postecoglou, played in the NSL, but also did well in Europe and had a more decorated international career.
He is just as invested in his own way in the local game having made his life in it, even if he is more of a realist than a revolutionary, a pragmatist than a dreamer.
It is hard to imagine Arnold writing a book outlining his vision to grow the game, advocating A-League expansion and promotion and relegation (contrary to the policies of the FFA) as the former coach once did.
Should Arnold get the job it is widely assumed that he would change the way the team plays, revert to a more cautious approach and emphasise containment rather than adventure.
That remains to be seen. His Sydney FC team last year only conceded 12 goals in 27 games, emphasising how well he can set up a team to defend. But it did score 55, just a shade over two a game, which is a decent average in a league that has so many equalising mechanisms to prevent one club from dominating the competition.
I would have preferred it if Postecoglou had not quit and had gone on at least to the World Cup.
But that horse has bolted.
If it is to be Arnold, then he at least deserves to be given the chance to put his stamp on the team and, like his predecessor, he will be judged by results and performances.
Still, it would be terrific to see Australia continue to play with an adventurous style. As Muscat said, do we really want to go back to the way it used to be?
