John Aloisi is hopeful the lure of playing for the Socceroos next year's World Cup will convince Jamie Maclaren to stay put at the Brisbane Roar.
But if the A-League's hottest off-contract player decides to move overseas, Aloisi says he'll understand.
Maclaren's hat trick in Sunday night's 5-1 win over the Central Coast Mariners has moved him to the top of the competition's goalscoring leaderboard, equal with Melbourne Victory's Besart Berisha on 18 goals.
The 23-year-old's scintillating performance continued run of 10 goals in his last seven A-League appearances.
It should also catch the attention of Ange Postecoglou, who surprisingly didn't select him in his squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, claiming he wanted to see Maclaren evolve his game first.
The Roar have not held talks with Maclaren over his future since November.
Their proposed deal would have made him the highest-paid player inside their salary cap, with Tommy Oar and Brett Holman already locked away as Brisbane's marquees next season.
But Maclaren's agent Paddy Dominquez slammed it as "disgusting" and "highly disrespectful" and suitors from all around the world have been lining up ever since.
Moving abroad, however, could backfire badly if he is not playing regular football in the lead-up to the World Cup in Russia.
Aloisi said the Roar would not reopen contract negotiations until after the season and considerations as to whether they can increase their offer to Maclaren would not be made until then.
But he did make his stance abundantly clear.
"For me, I think that he should stay in the A-League," Aloisi said.
"If he goes into a World Cup year playing regular football and scoring goals like this, Ange will have no choice but to select him.
"That's something we'll sit down [and talk about] at the end of the season.
"If he wants to stay then we'll negotiate what we can but at the moment we haven't even thought about money or what's on offer.
"To be honest I'm not really thinking about it so much. If Jamie wants to go overseas, I understand.
"All we can do is create a really good environment for him to keep on improving as a player.
"He knows the football we play is football where he's going to get chances and score goals. So if he does stay in the A-League we'd love to keep him."
