“At that time, I was playing in the Kopiñe (Cup of the state of São Paulo among youth teams – note. Ed.) for San Bernardo, and Shakhtar’s scouts wanted to sign me even before the end of the tournament. I stayed there for five months, took part in pre-season training in Turkey, and then went to Ukraine. It was a wonderful experience, because it is a completely different country, we know what happened there recently, and I am very attached to the people there, I felt a lot when it happened. I have friends there, I talked a lot with Ukrainians and still do. During the war, we talked a lot. I was a little afraid of this country, everything is different here. Not that it’s bad, I really respect it [Украину]but I decided to return.”
“The main difficulty is the language. When we cannot fully communicate, even without paying attention to low temperatures, it becomes very difficult. Then I went to Portugal, and everything became easier. All because of the language.”
“The decision to return was mine. It also has a heavy impact on my family. It was my first experience outside of Brazil, and I wanted to go back, but it wasn’t very right. If I had had a second experience earlier and I would have been better prepared, perhaps I would have stayed because of the importance of the club [«Шахтера»]. Today, I do not regret it, based on what happened later. But then, three months later, I regretted it a little,” said Silva.
According to Transfermarkt, Andre Silva was on loan at Shakhtar in the 2015/16 season. The footballer was listed in the double of the Donetsk team.
If we take the official information from the UAF database, then Andre Silva was never listed in Shakhtar’s application for participation in Ukrainian tournaments.
Andre Silva has been playing for São Paulo since March of this year, for which he scored 6 goals and provided 2 assists in 25 matches of the Brazilian Serie A-2024.
Source: sport.ua