It is late afternoon in Al Wakrah and as Kalvin Phillips discusses crossing his fingers to recover from shoulder surgery in time for the World Cup in a Bedouin-style tent at England’s training base it seems apt that the call to prayer for the Maghrib Salah seeps into conversation.
In weeks gone by the only call Phillips, who has played just four minutes in the Premier League this season, had been praying for was from Gareth Southgate and before receiving confirmation of his place in the squad his anxiety was only heightened when Kyle Walker, his Manchester City teammate who has been sidelined since October, told of his inclusion earlier that morning.
Phillips has been limited to a total of almost 70 minutes across four appearances for City since a £45m move from Leeds in the summer. “I think Kyle had been told the day before me, so I walked in the gym, Kyle came to me and said: ‘Ah, Gareth’s just rung me and said I’m involved in the World Cup,’ and I was thinking: ‘Well, if he’s ringing all the injured players telling him they’re involved, well why hadn’t he rang me?’ So there was a little bit of doubt that crept in,” Phillips says.
“I got a phone call about 9.30am. I asked him how he was and he said: ‘A lot better after seeing you play for 40 minutes’ [against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup on 9 November] and then he told me that I was involved. I just said: ‘Thanks a lot’ and ‘Thanks for including me, and thanks for believing in me.’”
Southgate was always going to give Phillips every chance of making the cut given his starring role at Euro 2020, where he started every game, including the final, playing all but 25 minutes of his first major tournament. Phillips won England’s player of the year in 2020-21.
“In the Euros I had a really … well, I had an alright tournament,” he says, smiling. “I spoke to Pep [Guardiola]. He didn’t exactly force me to get the operation but said he felt it was the best thing to do to have the best chance to be involved in the World Cup. When Pep tells you something like that then you’re not going to ignore it.”
Phillips first dislocated his shoulder at Leeds before suffering a recurrence in a pre-season friendly for City against Barcelona at Camp Nou in August. “The first time it popped out at Leeds it literally wouldn’t go back in and that was like an hour’s drive in the taxi to the hospital, so every bump that he [the driver] went over and every turn that it took, I was in agony,” he recalls.
After deciding to undergo surgery in September, Phillips at least felt in good hands, with his surgeon, Lennard Funk, having previously operated on Nick Pope.
It is clear Phillips, a self-deprecating character who previously likened his role at the base of midfield to a dog that chases whoever has the ball, is excited to be at his first World Cup, only 18 months after getting the man of the match award on his tournament debut against Croatia at Euro 2020. He looks in rude health – he says he is at about 95% fitness but could start against Iran on Monday if required – but why is his left flip-flop scissored and his foot cut? “It’s quite a good story,” he grins.
He whittled what should have been a 12-week recovery period into seven-and-a-half weeks: gruelling double sessions, stints in the heat chamber, altitude training and hours on the bike. But his hard work could have been rendered redundant had he dropped anything heavier than a 5kg weight plate on his foot on the morning of City’s final game before the World Cup break, a surprise stoppage-time defeat to Brentford, for which he was an unused substitute.
“Being the professional that I am,” he smiles, “I went to the gym before the match and was just doing loads of Achilles work on the leg press. I’d gone to pull a weight off the rack and there must have been one stuck behind it and [as] I pulled it off it landed straight on my foot and cut it all. But it is not too bad, it is the blisters from training [in Qatar] that hurt more – it isn’t too bad but I stood for about 10 seconds and thought: ‘Oh my god, what was that?’ If it wasn’t a 5kg plate, if it had been heavier, I think it would have been a lot worse.”
Has he been able to benefit from Guardiola’s wisdom despite his stop-start beginning to life at City? “I’ve not been able to learn as much as I would like because of my injuries but from the first moment I walked in I was learning. The way Pep sees the game and wants his players to play was a massive eye-opener. When I got there I was confident in myself and in the first training session I was just like ‘Woaaah’ this is very, very different, this is very tough. But they are the best players in the world so I didn’t have any regrets or doubts.”
Phillips is determined to seize his latest chance. The 26-year-old hopes his father, Mark, an inmate at Wealstun Prison, will be able to tune into his games. Congratulatory messages from old teachers at Farnley Academy, his secondary school in Leeds, and old coaches from Wortley Juniors, his first club three miles from Elland Road, flooded in, filtered via his twin sister, Deren, after news of his place in the squad spread.
“It was very humbling for me as I came from a little area in Leeds, not a tough upbringing but had to work for everything that I got and just to get the call-up, after the eight weeks I had was a relief,” he says. “But I knew the hard work was about to start.”
