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During our meeting, Phil is sitting comfortably inside an Italian restaurant where we are holding this exclusive interview. He listens intently as his manager, top-notch publicist Joyce Ramirez, seamlessly outlines the do’s and don’ts of being a star talent of PR Asia (no scandals, no drugs and NO friendsters or myspace accounts). He leans back and grins broadly, “Joyce is my Jerry Maguire.” He calls football the beautiful game, and few have ever made it look prettier than Phil. He wears a white Lacoste sports shirt, which, with his very short haircut, makes him a dead ringer for the Hollywood actor, Josh Hartnett. In his thick British accent he describes to us his cute and affable charmed life.

To most Filipinos, the 19-year old Phil gives a very good impression of a young man who has everything. His incredible feat as a member for one of the world’s wealthiest football clubs and for the Philippine’s national team is matched by his growing reputation as one of the sport’s most eligible and sought after young bachelors. In 2005, he debuted in the number nine shirt of the Philippine team, and he has subsequently usurped his place as the most feared striker in the league.

Phil plays side by side in the national team with elder brother James, eleven months his senior. The brothers are currently based in England where they inhabit a typical fraternity lifestyle: video games, table tennis, basketball, endless sporting competition, not to mention the usual sibling rivalry. “In contrast to James, I am more ledge.” quips Phil flashing his mischievous and boyish smile. Occasionally, Phil’s Filipino mother Susan Placer-Younghusband, an ultimate soccer mom and the boys’ number one fan, flies in to watch most of her son’s international games.

During the 2005 Southeast Asian Games held in Bacolod, both brothers were mobbed by female fans. The attention makes life “tricky” for potential girlfriends, he suggests, “but then you can’t have everything.” The fans speculate obsessively about Phil’s love life and he insists he does not currently have anyone significant to share his ambitious tastes with, though he admits to falling in love, “at least every week.” The only true love he confesses though is his relationship with football. “Football is my life. I am playing all the time, the ball never leaves me. I love the game so much nothing else comes first.”

Most football players talk a lot about the importance of keeping their feet on the ground; Phil goes through the motions of this, knowing he is only one part of a team, but in each performance he is powerfully aware of his significance to the team. He has an air of supreme confidence in him (“its just typical English humor,” he says), and as he talks, Phil makes it clear he has never known quite what it is like to struggle in the sport. His natural skill with the ball started when he was in his early teens. As a kid he was immediately sent to Chelsea’s Football Academy, where he was trained by some of England’s best including Frank Lampard, John Terry and France’s Claude Makelele – all first team players and premiership winners. Phil is currently contracted to Chelsea as a highly rated reserve team regular, and because of his exposure to some of the best players in the world, is often consulted by the national team’s coaching staff for input.

Now, Phil has a chance to lead the local football club into mainstream action and boost funding support and national enthusiasm for the sport after Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho allowed him to play for his mother’s homeland. “Football is so big in England, so I am proud to be given the chance to show what I’ve got and hopefully bring international fame to the Philippines.”

On the other hand, Phil brightens up when we talk about plans for launching him as a prominent advertising and celebrity figure locally. It is rumored that the players in his team, including with his own brother, have a little off-field competition about who is the most popular and best player. Phil has no doubt: “It is me, obviously,” he says jokingly, before his manager gives him the look and answers for him, “and James, of course.”

For all his apparent ease with this lifestyle, there are still quite a number of projects he wishes to pursue. Named after his late father, Philip James, who died of cancer four years ago, he would like to do charity work that involves lung cancer efforts and furthering the national love for football. Otherwise, his dreams lie on the field of play: to be the best and most bankable football player both locally and most especially, in England. “My future revolves around football, and my whole career in Chelsea is centered on it. If I continue the discipline, I have a chance at striking it big,” he says with some modesty, knowing all the time that he is, in many ways, on the right way to his ultimate goal.