Former Northern Ireland and Fulham manager Lawrie Sanchez has applied for the Wales manager’s job.
Sanchez has been out of football management since being sacked by Fulham in December 2007, having saved the London club from relegation the previous season.
The 51-year-old, who famously scored the winning goal for Wimbledon in the 1988 FA Cup final victory against Liverpool, enjoyed a fine spell in charge of Northern Ireland after taking the job in January 2004.
Sanchez masterminded a World Cup 2006 qualifying win against England and when he left for Craven Cottage they were top of their Euro 2008 group and had rocketed from 124th to 27th in the world rankings.
However, Sanchez will be seen as an outsider to land the Wales post as the Football Association of Wales prepare to draw up a short-list by the end of next week, having received more than 60 formal applications.
Chris Coleman, Ian Rush, Dean Saunders, Brian Flynn and Peter Nicholas are all understood to have applied, but the FAW will go after an alternative man should they be dissatisfied with the candidates they have already received.
An FAW source said: “Ideally the Wales manager needs to be Welsh to understand what football means to the Welsh public, but we are not shutting the doors on that basis.
“When we go through the interested parties next week, if the FAW feel that nobody stands out, we will go out there and knock on a few doors.
“Some high-profile managers prefer to be called and if that’s what it takes then so be it.”
