Bert Van Marwijk, Graham Arnold, Marcelo Bielsa, Louis Van Gaal, Tony Popovic or whoever it is that finally lands the Socceroos job will have two games in four days in late March to familiarise himself with his new charges before making crucial decisions on who will make the World Cup squad for Russia 2018, and who will miss out.
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The FFA had already lined up a friendly in Oslo against Norway on March 23, but on Friday morning confirmed that the Australian team would play a second match, just four days later, against Colombia in London.
The match will be played at Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham Football Club - a venue Australian sides know well as they have often used it as a home from home for internationals played in the English capital.
The Colombians have also qualified for the World Cup and are one of the highest ranked teams in the world, boasting talents like the former Real Madrid and now Bayern Munich striker James Rodriguez, who has, in recent days, been linked with a move to Premier League big guns Liverpool.
The kick-off against Jose Pekerman's side will be at 8pm local time (6am AEDT - Wednesday, 28 March 2018), and the game will be broadcast live in Australia on FOX SPORTS and Network Ten
The Colombians are in a different World Cup group to Australia, but will at least give the new coach some idea of how his side matches up against South American opposition. Australia must play another Latin American qualifier, Peru, in its World Cup group games in Russia.
Similarly the match against Norway will provide some sort of formline to see how the Socceroos might fare against another Scandinavian team, Denmark, who are also in their group.
Colombia - currently ranked 13th in the world - are also scheduled to play Australia's first World Cup Group C opponent, France, in a friendly in Paris on the same day that Australia takes on Norway.
"We are excited to have secured the match against Colombia, which offers us a good challenge against strong South American opposition leading into the FIFA World Cup," says FFA chief David Gallop.
"We believe that we have managed to put together a strong set of matches [Norway & Colombia] for our soon to be appointed Head Coach to cast his eye over the squad, and continue to prepare our players for Russia."
"We are thankful to the Colombian Football Federation for hosting us at Craven Cottage as we continue to build towards Russia," concluded Gallop.
The Socceroos and Colombia have played three friendly fixtures in the past.
In 1995 the two nations met twice in Australia. The first fixture ended in a 0-0 draw in Brisbane, before Colombia edged Australia 1-0 in Sydney.
In 2001 the Socceroos, under then coach Frank Farina, travelled to Bogota to play Colombia at the Nemesio Camacho Stadium. Colombia led 3-0 before late goals to Steve Corica and Scott Chipperfield brought a measure of respectability to the scoreline, which finished at 3-2.
