Eng­lish-born mid­field­er Daniel Phillips, an 18-year-old who is el­i­gi­ble to rep­re­sent T&T, has of­fi­cial­ly ex­pressed an in­ter­est in wear­ing the red, white and black of T&T.

Phillips, a play­er who suc­cess­ful­ly came out of the Wat­ford Acad­e­my, re­cent­ly se­cured a two-year con­tract with the Eng­lish Pre­mier Di­vi­sion club.

Phillips' fa­ther David Roger Ed­ward Phillips is T&T-born and na­tive of Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, his moth­er Leono­ra is Eng­lish born and lived in Bris­tol, be­fore mov­ing to T&T at age three years, where she resided un­til she was 33. Phillips is al­so the cousin of for­mer T&T de­fend­er Ian Cox who was a mem­ber of the 2006 World Cup squad that played in Ger­many.

The ju­nior Phillips, born in En­field, North Lon­don, first ex­pressed an in­ter­est in rep­re­sent­ing T&T by show­ing up at the coun­try's in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match against Wales at the Race­course Ground in Wrex­ham in March this year. The T&T So­ca War­riors were beat­en 0-1, but Phillips took in the en­tire game and even met with coach Den­nis Lawrence and oth­er mem­bers of the tour­ing con­tin­gent af­ter­wards.

An out­stand­ing mem­ber of the Wat­ford acad­e­my, Phillips' con­tract came af­ter im­press­ing se­lec­tors over the years. He joined the club as a 14-year old and was re­cent­ly named the 2018/19 Play­er of the Sea­son.

Ac­cord­ing to Phillips, “I’m ex­cit­ed to get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball and get the in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence. To get the chance to test my­self at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el is some­thing I’m look­ing for­ward to,” he added.

Wat­ford has de­scribed their new pro­fes­sion­al sign­ing as a cen­tral mid­field play­er who is very com­fort­able on the ball and has good tech­nique. "He breaks lines in pos­ses­sion very well, cre­at­ing at­tack­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for the team,” the club was quot­ed as say­ing.