If Anthony Hudson is appointed as the next All Whites coach, New Zealand Football will not only be getting a coach desperate to make his name at the highest level but also someone who has faced the ultimate depths of despair.
Hudson is seemingly days away from being confirmed as Ricki Herbert's successor after a worldwide search that attracted more than 100 applicants.
According to reports, the 33-year-old resigned from his post as Bahrain coach last week and has been offered the New Zealand role.
Hudson comes with a big reputation but his coaching CV was modest before his recent success in the Middle East, when he took their under-23 side to the 2013 Gulf Cup (Bahrain's first trophy at senior level) and helped the senior team qualify for January's Asian Cup.
It indicates some promise but Hudson wants much, much more.
"In five years' time I see myself being considered for big jobs, top clubs, either in Europe or South America," he said earlier this year. "I want to be competing against big teams, in front of big crowds, working with top players."
Hudson has spent time at almost every Premier League club as an observer, as well as Real Madrid, Ajax and top MLS franchises. He even flew to Argentina before the World Cup to spend time with Marcelo Bielsa, one of his coaching heroes.
He's flying high at the moment, but Hudson faced his own hell just over a decade ago - the kind of turmoil that sets you on a different path, or sends you into a downward spiral.
In his early 20s, after numerous incidents, Hudson found himself in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting telling strangers about his problems.
He had been a promising teenage footballer, good enough to be at West Ham alongside Michael Carrick. When he was 17 his father Alan (a highly-acclaimed midfielder for Stoke, Chelsea, Arsenal and England in the 1970s) was almost killed after being hit by a car.
He told the Express newspaper in 2011 "the whole situation fuelled my drinking". After he was released, Hudson ended up at Nijmegen in Holland. He didn't last long.
"I was out in an English bar on my own every night," Hudson said. "That's not normal at 19. I crashed my car a couple of times, drink-driving. I asked to be released and came home. That's when it really got out of control."
Back in London he began working as a city trader but the fast-living, high-spending lifestyle continued before he eventually went to the US to revive a career in football. He picked up a player-coaching job but the demons were never far away.
"I would turn up to training and couldn't get out of the car," he said. "I would be shaking, sweating and in tears. I would start on beer and go on to vodka. But it was anything."
After waking up and seeing his car on the kerb again, according to the Express, he took himself to an AA meeting and began a new chapter from which he hasn't looked back.
Some will frown at Hudson's chequered past but it could be viewed as a positive. The 33-year-old, at a young age, has faced lows that most couldn't contemplate. It's the kind of place that breeds an immense hunger to succeed; not a bad quality for an aspiring coach.
Based on his ambitions, Hudson won't be a long-term investment for NZF. He'll have his eyes on more glamorous destinations by 2019 but, if he can get the All Whites to the 2017 Confederation Cup and at least close to the 2018 World Cup, he'll have done enough.