SANTIAGO, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Argentina's Marcelo Bielsa has been offered the job as coach of Chile, the president of the Chilean football association said on Sunday.

"All we need is for him to say yes," said Harold Mayne-Nicholls after meeting with the famously introverted Bielsa, who has not coached since quitting the Argentina job in September 2004.

"We had a conversation lasting about one-and-a-half to two hours and the basic points were... the project to take us to South Africa in 2010," he said.

Mayne-Nicholls said Bielsa, who coached Argentina at the 2002 World Cup when they were surprisingly knocked out in the first round, had visited the team's training camp on Saturday.

Chile, who last qualified for the World Cup in 1998, have been coachless since Nelson Acosta resigned following their 6-1 Copa America quarter-final defeat to Brazil last month.

Claudio Borghi and under-20 coach Jose Sulantay, the other two main candidates, have both ruled themselves out of the race.

Bielsa coached Argentina from 1998 and 2004. He has also coached Velez Sarsfield and Newell's Old Boys in his homeland and Atlas and America in Mexico.