Trinidad and To­ba­go men’s foot­ball team mid­field­er Daniel Phillips says there are valu­able lessons to be tak­en from Sat­ur­day’s 5-0 in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly de­feat to 25th world-ranked South Ko­rea at BYU South Field in Pro­vo, Utah, USA.

​Cap­tain Son He­ung-min scored a first-half brace in the 40th and 43rd min­utes, the sec­ond com­ing from the penal­ty spot, while Gue-sung Cho added a sec­ond-half dou­ble in the 65th and 77th. Hwang Hee-chan al­so con­vert­ed a penal­ty in the 75th for the South Ko­re­ans.

​South Ko­rea used the match to pre­pare for the 2026 FI­FA World Cup be­gin­ning Thurs­day, where they will com­pete in Group A against South Africa, Mex­i­co, and Czechia in the USA, Mex­i­co, and Cana­da.

On the oth­er hand, T&T was play­ing its first match with Derek King in an of­fi­cial role as head coach. King pre­vi­ous­ly served as in­ter­im boss dur­ing the FI­FA Se­ries in March, which re­sult­ed in de­feats against Venezuela (4-1) and Gabon (3-2 on penal­ty kicks af­ter a 2-2 draw) in Uzbek­istan. The So­ca War­riors are us­ing these fix­tures as part of a re­build­ing process ahead of the 2026/2027 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League, which kicks off in Sep­tem­ber.

Speak­ing af­ter the match at the Ash­er Adams ho­tel, the 25-year-old Eng­land-born Phillips, who plays for Eng­lish League One club Steve­nage, ac­knowl­edged the qual­i­ty of the op­po­si­tion while stress­ing the im­por­tance of test­ing the team against high­er-ranked na­tions.

​“It was a dif­fi­cult game, and we knew they were go­ing to be very dif­fi­cult op­po­si­tion,” Phillips said. "There are lots of dif­fer­ent rea­sons why we take on these sorts of chal­lenges. They are a vast­ly ex­pe­ri­enced and or­gan­ised team, ranked 25th in the world and one of the strongest teams in Asia with qual­i­ty play­ers through­out their squad."

​South Ko­rea struck twice in quick suc­ces­sion late in the first half be­fore adding three more goals af­ter the in­ter­val. De­spite the score­line, Phillips be­lieves the ex­pe­ri­ence will prove ben­e­fi­cial for both the coach­ing staff and the play­ers mov­ing for­ward.

"This game gave the coach and us play­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to test our­selves," he ex­plained. "We con­ced­ed five goals, but it’s an ex­er­cise where we have to take what comes with it. Ob­vi­ous­ly, we wouldn’t have want­ed to con­cede five goals, but these are the types of match­es that can teach you a lot."

Phillips, who has fea­tured 27 times for T&T, felt the So­ca War­riors re­mained com­pet­i­tive for large pe­ri­ods of the open­ing half be­fore a lapse in con­cen­tra­tion al­lowed the South Ko­re­ans to seize con­trol.

“We were there with them in the open­ing half, but then we con­ced­ed two goals quick­ly be­fore the break. That’s some­thing we have to look back at and try to avoid. Those are the sort of mis­takes you can’t af­ford to make against teams of this qual­i­ty.”

Phillips al­so re­flect­ed on the sig­nif­i­cance of play­ing in the USA, mere days be­fore the start of the 2026 FI­FA World Cup.

“I think it’s great be­ing able to come out here and be part of the ex­pe­ri­ence in a coun­try where the next World Cup is go­ing to take place. Ob­vi­ous­ly, it was our dream and hope to be here as a qual­i­fied na­tion, but that wasn’t to be.

“To say we’re just go­ing to re­main down and dis­ap­point­ed, I would say there are oth­er things we can take away from all of this. There are pos­i­tives in be­ing here, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the en­vi­ron­ment and con­tin­u­ing to pre­pare our­selves for the fu­ture.”

Phillips al­so ad­mit­ted that the dis­ap­point­ment of T&T’s un­suc­cess­ful World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign re­mains fresh but be­lieves the team must now fo­cus on the op­por­tu­ni­ties ahead.

“I’ve done some re­flect­ing since the World Cup cam­paign end­ed last No­vem­ber, and look­ing back at every­thing, this is what makes a team and play­ers be­come a bet­ter unit. We have to take what went right for us and build on it.” "We have to use this cur­rent pe­ri­od as an im­por­tant tran­si­tion phase for the na­tion­al team, with new lead­er­ship and fresh faces be­gin­ning to es­tab­lish them­selves with­in the squad. “It’s a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od for us now. We have a new man­ag­er and some new faces in the team. I’m pleased to be part of this group as we pre­pare for what’s ahead.

“Our next big goal is do­ing well in the Na­tions League, which starts in Sep­tem­ber. We want to qual­i­fy for the Gold Cup, do well there and con­tin­ue work­ing to­wards es­tab­lish­ing our­selves as a stronger team in the re­gion.”

​The mid­field­er, a for­mer Scot­land-based pro­fes­sion­al who made 56 ap­pear­ances for St John­stone, was en­cour­aged by the per­for­mances of sev­er­al new­com­ers look­ing to se­cure a per­ma­nent spot in the na­tion­al set­up. Among them was 23-year-old Dun­fermline Ath­let­ic left-back Kier­an Ng­wenya, who made his se­nior in­ter­na­tion­al de­but.

“I’m glad for him,” Phillips said. “He came in for the first time, and he’s done well. He’s trained well all week and looked good in his first match. It’s not easy to come in­to your first game against an op­po­nent like South Ko­rea.

"There are oth­er guys who came in with a good, pos­i­tive at­ti­tude as well, which is a good sign for us as a team. It shows that there is com­pe­ti­tion for places and play­ers who are ea­ger to make an im­pact when­ev­er they get an op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

T&T now turn their at­ten­tion to Tues­day's (June 9) in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly against Rus­sia in Kalin­ingrad, an­oth­er stern test against qual­i­ty op­po­si­tion.

"The next game against Rus­sia is go­ing to be an­oth­er tough one, but we can’t hide,” Phillips said. “We have to keep tak­ing on these chal­lenges as best we can. That’s how we im­prove, that’s how we learn, and that’s how we con­tin­ue to move for­ward as a team.”