Na­tion­al Un­der 20 de­fend­er Damani Richards is cur­rent­ly on tri­al with Amer­i­can Ma­jor League Soc­cer club Philadel­phia Union. Richards whois at­tached to lo­cal Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League club, Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA has been in train­ing with the Union team for the past week and a half and is ex­pect­ed back in T&T to­day.

"It's been a great ex­pe­ri­ence. This was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to get some ex­po­sure away from home and it opened my eyes up to a few things. It's a lot faster out here," Richards said. "I had the chance to train with Fred­dy Adu and some of the oth­er se­nior guys."

So­ca War­riors mid­field­er Keon Daniel is a mem­ber of the Union out­fit and Richards hopes to join his for­mer Cale­do­nia club­mate on the US cir­cuit. "They re­al­ly like Keon up here. I've on­ly been hear­ing good things about him. Hope­ful­ly I can fol­low in his foot­steps and play here some­day," Richards said.

Richards is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive fur­ther word from the Union coach­ing staff lat­er this month, but on ar­rival back in T&T he will re­join the T&T Un­der-20 team for the fi­nal round of Caribbean Foot­ball Union World qual­i­fy­ing match­es in Ja­maica in ear­ly No­vem­ber against Puer­to Ri­co (No­vem­beer 5), Haiti (No­vem­ber 7) and Cu­ra­cao on No­vem­ber 9.

BIG FOUR STAND­INGS

Pre­mier Di­vi­sion

Teams Pld W D L F A Pts

Wes­t­end 3 3 0 0 9 3 9

Day­break 3 2 0 1 8 4 6

GEMS 3 1 0 2 2 4 3

RLC 3 0 0 3 4 12 0

First Di­vi­sion

Teams Pld W D L F A Pts

COTR 3 2 1 0 7 2 7

CNC 3 2 0 1 5 3 6

La Hor­quet­ta 3 1 1 1 4 2 4

DDS­FC 3 0 0 3 1 13 0