Blackpool new boys Sammy Silvera has discussed his move to Bloomfield Road and reflected on his career so far.
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00:00Central Coast to the Fylde Coast, how do the two compare?
00:03A little bit different, there's a beach, they're both got a beach.
00:07But yeah, there's a little more sunshine on the Central Coast.
00:12But look, I'm getting accustomed to it around here and yeah, it's good.
00:18What was it like growing up, obviously you mentioned playing different sports,
00:21but was it like hard to break into football?
00:23Was the facilities and the set-up there that we have here?
00:26Compared to Australia, it was quite difficult at the time coming through.
00:32I think there was only a couple of youth contracts, like I mentioned before,
00:36that were available to boys probably from ages 16 to 19 coming through.
00:41So it was quite hard to break and there's not as many teams, professional teams within Australia.
00:46So it was a difficult process.
00:48I think there was lots of boys trying to get out of Australia into UK to like the youth systems here.
00:55That's always a goal for a young boy.
00:58But if you're lucky enough and you work hard enough,
01:01you get the opportunity to go and be in the A-League system there
01:05and you can kind of kick-start your career there quite early.
01:08So if you get that opportunity, it can be good.
01:11Was there a lot of determination then, your end to break through?
01:14Yeah, 100%, I think. For me, I was quite small growing up compared to some of the other boys.
01:20I was always even put down a level because of my size.
01:25So it was always that determination to have extra training,
01:30to go out there after school and to keep working and working.
01:34I think it's paid off.
01:35How big a jump was it to leave home?
01:37And you obviously went to Europe first before you arrived in England.
01:40So how big a jump was that?
01:42When I was 19, yeah, Portugal was difficult.
01:45I think I got there and I was there for three weeks feeling great.
01:51And first game came on at halftime and 10 minutes in,
01:56one of the centre-backs landed on my ankle and tore three muscles and damaged my ligament.
02:00So I was out for about four and a half months.
02:02So that was a changing period for me where I learnt a lot.
02:06I learnt a lot and it was difficult.
02:09And having no family there, it was even harder.