Heart closing in on Garcia coup

The 30-year-old, a part of Australia's 2010 FIFA World Cup squad, has been looking for a fresh start since being released by Championship outfit Hull City at the end of last season.

And Heart CEO Scott Munn confirmed that Garcia - whose other clubs included West Ham United, Leyton Orient and Colchester United - is undergoing a medical before putting pen to paper.

Garcia, who has 14 caps for his country and is desperate to resurrect his international career, was a team-mate of Heart assistant Hayden Foxe at Upton Park and his signature will be a coup for a club determined to make a sizeable impact in the looming A-League season.

He met Heart head coach John Aloisi and also his new team-mates, with Munn saying: "We've been in discussions with Richard and he's been down to look at our set-up today.

"We'd love to have him on board. He can play anywhere across the middle, or even up front, but we see him as slotting into our midfield.

"We're excited and just need to finalise a few things, including his medical and then we can proceed.

"He feels there is an awful lot of football left in him - and we agree. He finished last season in Hull's first team after suffering a few injuries prior to that and has, of course, played at the highest level in the Premier League while at the club."

It's understood Garcia may have a clause in his deal which would allow to him to switch to Asia - in the same vein as recent departures Brendan Hamill and Adrian Madaschi - should the opportunity arise next year.

Munn added: "He still wants to explore his options and we are not sure yet how the terms of the contact might be finalised but we should be in position early next week to move forward with everything.

"He wants to get back to playing regular football and get back in front of Holger Osieck and hopefully play himself back into the Socceroos squad. That's certainly uppermost in his mind and we would love to help him achieve that.

"He's the last piece of the puzzle for us in terms of signing experienced players. We have 19 in our squad now and the next couple of positions will go to some youngsters.

"We feel we now have a good balance and looking forward in terms of signings it will be about bringing in youth."

Heart eased past local premier league side Northcote 1-0 on Wednesday night with Dylan Macallister scoring the only goal.