From Ec­cles Vil­lage to the world, Mar­vin Phillip has lived and played every young foot­baller’s dream. The long-term Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­nior Na­tion­al Foot­ball team goal­keep­er called time on his in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer on No­vem­ber 2 but isn’t done with the sport.

The So­ca War­rior’s sec­ond most-capped goalie (92) and a true leg­end in his own right took a mo­ment from train­ing to speak with Guardian Me­dia Sports Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er JO­VAN RAV­EL­LO about his jour­ney.

Sun­day Guardian: You re­cent­ly an­nounced your re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball. How did you ar­rive at this point?

Mar­vin Phillip: It’s a bit hard to leave the game I’ve been play­ing for quite sev­er­al years, but this de­ci­sion came through hav­ing dis­cus­sions with my fam­i­ly. It wasn’t an overnight de­ci­sion, I’ve been think­ing about this for a year, and a half. Speak­ing with my wife and kids, they felt I should leave while I’m on top.

Sun­day Guardian: A lot of peo­ple say goal­keep­ers have a screw loose. How did you de­cide to pick up gloves?

Mar­vin: All goal­keep­ers have their sto­ry, mine is prob­a­bly the same as many oth­ers. I didn’t start as a goal­keep­er, I start­ed as a strik­er. There was an Un­der-15 match, and the keep­er didn’t come that day, I de­cid­ed to go in the goal and a coach, Mr. James saw me that day, in­vit­ed me to play with Gas­par­il­lo Youths and from there it was his­to­ry.

Sun­day Guardian: Who was the most in­flu­en­tial coach/ad­min­is­tra­tor in your ca­reer?

Mar­vin: I have to go back to where it all start­ed. It all start­ed with Mr Os­wald James. I would like to thank him. He saw some­thing in me that I didn’t even see. He said he saw po­ten­tial in me as a ‘keep­er at that young age. I was like what­ev­er and just go­ing along. So I’d like to ex­press my grat­i­tude to him be­cause he kick­start­ed my ca­reer.

Sun­day Guardian: How did that set your vi­sion for the rest of your life?

Mar­vin: To be hon­est, foot­ball in that com­mu­ni­ty wasn’t the first sport. The first sport was crick­et, so back in the day crick­et sea­son was from Jan­u­ary to prob­a­bly about June; then foot­ball for the rest of the year. Many peo­ple don’t know this but my first time on a na­tion­al team would’ve been as an Un­der-13 crick­eter.

Lat­er, I had the chance to play foot­ball and there was the ICN/CLI­CO Un­der-13 tour­na­ment try­ing to pre­pare a team for (the FI­FA Un­der-17 World Cup) 2001 every­thing just fell in­to place with me be­ing se­lect­ed and be­ing un­der the wing of (Strike Squad goal­keep­er) Michael Mau­rice.

Sun­day Guardian: You have a pret­ty rare record, win­ning both foot­ball and crick­et In­ter­col ti­tles. How did you man­age that?

Mar­vin: Back in the day, I went to a school that was play­ing both sports, be­fore win­ning those ti­tles I was do­ing the same at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege. At Princes Town they didn’t want me to play any crick­et at all. I had some cousins on the crick­et team and they begged me to play and every­thing worked out.

Sun­day Guardian: How im­por­tant was that time at Princes Town? It was a pret­ty ex­cit­ing team, even though we beat you guys in Moru­ga.

Mar­vin: (laughs) First­ly lemme say this, on record, Moru­ga al­ways used to give us trou­ble down in Moru­ga, but when they out of Moru­ga was easy pick­ings (laugh). Be­ing at Princes Town, it wasn’t hard play­ing on that team; we had the likes of (An­tho­ny) Nor­ie­ga who was a for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er, the now de­ceased Clyde Leon, Lin­sie Sher­wood, An­drei Pacheco. So Coach Gill had noth­ing else but to get us to play a nice style of foot­ball to­geth­er and we won a na­tion­al cham­pi­onship

Sun­day Guardian: What was the first time throw­ing on that na­tion­al kit like?

Mar­vin: It is al­ways an ho­n­our to rep­re­sent your coun­try, from the youth lev­el. It was a bit dif­fi­cult be­ing screened with about 300-400 from around Trinidad and To­ba­go and be­ing in the fi­nal cut it was def­i­nite­ly an ho­n­our. We know foot­ball was on a high from 2006, but af­ter that, there were a cou­ple of play­ers who were black­list­ed and every­thing just fell in­to place for me from 2007 un­til 2023 when I an­nounced my in­ter­na­tion­al re­tire­ment.

Sun­day Guardian: Talk to me about the ride as a na­tion­al se­nior foot­baller.

Mar­vin: It wasn’t a per­fect ride, I would’ve had a lot more ups than downs, a lot of tur­bu­lence along the way but I saw it through, those times. And I think I rep­re­sent­ed my coun­try well.

Sun­day Guardian: What were some of the proud­est mo­ments?

Mar­vin: I could pin­point a lot; World Cup qual­i­fiers in Cos­ta Ri­ca. I had a tremen­dous out­ing there; my most re­cent would’ve been against Mex­i­co in the 2021 Gold Cup, and just be­fore that a friend­ly in Japan un­der coach Den­nis (Lawrence), three would’ve been the proud­est for me.

Sun­day Guardian: The Mex­i­co game in par­tic­u­lar was a heat­ed at­mos­phere. What kind of feel­ings were you go­ing through?

Mar­vin: As play­ers you live to play these games. Play­ing Mex­i­co in the States you could say it was a home game, the sta­di­um had about 70,000 Mex­i­cans, def­i­nite­ly a hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment. But as the game went along- the team play­ing well, I mak­ing some saves, they felt the pres­sure and for­tu­nate­ly for us, we came out with a draw.

Sun­day Guardian: Peo­ple, in­clud­ing me, don’t un­der­stand what it is to be a pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller, can you try to ex­plain it?

Mar­vin: It’s dif­fi­cult, re­al­ly dif­fi­cult. Some peo­ple may think that it’s just three hours of train­ing for the day and that’s it. But to be a top play­er you need to put in the work. If you don’t you def­i­nite­ly won’t have suc­cess. You need to put in the work, on the field, off the field, in your habits, di­et, and rest, it’s hard work but af­ter that, you’ll reap the re­wards.

Sun­day Guardian: More re­cent­ly we’ve seen younger keep­ers like Den­zil Smith, and Christo­pher Biggette mak­ing the step up, how do you feel about the next gen­er­a­tion of glove­men?

Mar­vin: Our coun­try is blessed, be­cause through­out the years we had tremen­dous goal­keep­ers from Lin­coln Phillips, Earl Carter, Michael Mau­rice, Ross Rus­sell, Clay­ton Ince, Kelvin Jack, Sha­ka His­lop, af­ter those names my­self, Du­rance Williams, Cleon John, Jan Mic­a­hel Williams. So now these young­sters are mak­ing the tran­si­tion, it’s good for them.

Den­zil has been knock­ing on the door for quite a while, he’s young, and he has a lot to learn but as you can see, he’s ready for the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el

Sun­day Guardian: How do you feel about the cur­rent crop of na­tion­al play­ers?

Mar­vin: Our foot­ball wasn’t on a high for quite a while, ku­dos to the coach, he’s got­ten some good re­sults re­cent­ly where a lot of peo­ple wouldn’t have had any hope, so I think once the team sticks to­geth­er, works hard and [PP1] goes out there and per­forms I think we’re in a good place right now head­ing in­to the 2026 World Cup cam­paign.

Sun­day Guardian: Is your club ca­reer still alive? How much longer do you think you can com­pete at the high­est lev­el?

Mar­vin: I’ll be play­ing foot­ball in the TTPFL this year, and be men­tor­ing some youths as well at what­ev­er club I’ll be at.

Sun­day Guardian: Is coach­ing the next step for you?

Mar­vin: I’m cur­rent­ly fin­ish­ing some li­cens­es, I al­ready have my goal­keep­er cer­tifi­cate so most like­ly ear­ly next year, I’ll be with (the coach­ing staff) of a club for the TTPFL Youth League.

Sun­day Guardian: How does it feel to walk away?

Mar­vin: It’s a bit sad but I’m very proud of what I ac­com­plished in my ca­reer, I’m very proud of what I’m still ac­com­plish­ing as a play­er and as a hu­man be­ing.

My wife, thanks to her, has been a pil­lar to­wards the things I’ve been do­ing, my mom, and my dad have been a tremen­dous sup­port and my kids as well, they sup­port me in every­thing I do.