Plenty of eyebrows were raised when Newcastle announced Jamal Lewis was heading on loan to Brazilian giants Sao Paulo for the season.
Lewis, who represents Northern Ireland on the international stage, will become the first-ever British player to represent for the club when he inevitably makes his debut.
At Sao Paulo, who have won the Brazilian Serie A six times, the defender will link up with ex-Tottenham star Lucas Moura as well as former Bayern Munich duo Rafinha and Luiz Gustavo.
As much as Lewis can prepare for the big move, there’s undoubtedly going to be several culture shocks along the way.
Just ask former non-league defender-turned-writer Seth Burkett, who spent time playing professionally in Brazil with Sorriso Esporte Clube (EC) between 2009-2010.
Speaking on talkSPORT’s Hawksbee and Jacobs, the 33-year-old opened up on his bizarre journey of how a teenager from Peterborough ended up in South America.
Burkett discussed how, while playing for Stamford, a Brazilian agent moved to England and began getting involved with the club.
The agent later suggested that Stamford’s under-18s should head to Brazil for a youth football tournament in Salvador.
“It was just an amazing experience,” Burkett told talkSPORT.
However, Burkett detailed how Stamford’s first game proved to be a ‘sobering’ experience, especially given the opposition boasted two future Liverpool superstars in Alisson and Philippe Coutinho.
“Our first game of the tournament was against Brazil’s national team, which was quite sobering for an under-18 non-league team,” Burkett said.
“Alisson was in goal, didn’t get near him, obviously. Coutinho was playing as well. Both were pretty good. Alisson wasn’t really known, but Coutinho had just signed for Inter Milan, so we were told to watch out for him.”
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Although Stamford failed to make much of a splash in the tournament, Burkett was fortunate enough to be asked to train with Brazilian club Vitoria.
From that experience, Sorriso EC, a club located in a state called Mate Grosso, invited Burkett to come back for a season and play for them.
“Initially I went out to play in the Copa Sao Paulo, which is the equivalent of the FA Youth Cup,” Burkett remarked.
“After that, not because of how good I was at football, but because I got the club a lot of media attention, they invited me to have a pro contract. I was by far the worst player in the team, but it was just an amazing experience, it really was.”
As the only British professional in Brazil at the time, many asked Burkett why on earth he had wanted to play there, where he insisted it was because of the nation’s grand football history.
But that didn’t stop Burkett from providing a cautionary tale to Lewis, especially when it comes to the inevitable language barrier.
“It was really tough (to adapt),” Burkett stated.
“I was 18 when I moved out there. I thought everyone would speak English. It turned out no-one did.”
It’s not just the language difficulties that may prove to be a culture shock for Lewis.
Burkett opened up about the significant differences in training styles from England to Brazil, hinting that Lewis will spend more time on the grass than ever before.
“Over here (in England), it’s 90 minutes and it’s done,” Burkett said. “The sessions are very long in Brazil, two-and-a-half to three hours, often double sessions.
“In the heat, that can be challenging. I found that in the youth team, everything’s done with the ball. Even when it’s a 40-minute recovery run, you take the ball with you and jog around the pitch.
“In the senior professional team, I found that there wasn’t really much ball work involved at all.”
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Burkett also detailed his time spent in Sorriso EC’s academy and what the living conditions were like.
Already a Premier League footballer, Lewis is next to no chance of undergoing a similar experience.
However, it will no doubt give the Northern Ireland international some important perspective about what his new teammates may have gone through.
“The football club I played in, they bought a garage and the whole team lived in this garage, which they turned into a three-bedroom house,” Burkett said.
“28 of us. Bars in the windows, everyone in bunk beds, no doors in toilets, the showers were just one concrete block. They do this on purpose.
“They said to me, ‘In England, your young players get given so much, how can they keep the fire in their bellies, how can they stay motivated?’ Even the best teams in Brazil make their younger players live in these tough conditions so they stay motivated.”
Lewis will join his new teammates after Northern Ireland’s Nations League fixtures against Luxembourg and Bulgaria.
The 26-year-old moves to Brazil having spent the 2023/24 campaign on loan with Championship side Watford, where he made 38 appearances in all competitions.
Lewis moved to Newcastle in September 2020 and featured 26 times in his first season at the club.
However, the left-back fell down the pecking order and only played ten times for the Magpies in the following two campaigns.
