It took the Green Bay Packers 10 hours and 40 minutes to reach São Paulo, Brazil, on their Boeing 777-300ER. The Philadelphia Eagles, flying on the same type of aircraft, had a slightly shorter flight plan of nine and a half hours -- one way.

And that's just the players and coaches plus whatever could fit in the cargo areas.

But when it came to transporting everything the two teams needed on the road, it took more than three months -- and three airplanes plus a cargo ship -- to get everything to the first NFL game in South America, which kicks off at 8:15 p.m. ET Friday on Peacock.

"It's hard every week," Packers director of logistics/team travel Matt Klein said. "This is probably just a little bit harder.

"It's a big undertaking whether you take a team to Chicago or Detroit or whether you take it to Brazil. I think there's just a lot of things that factor into it that are just different than traveling within the states."

"It's a lot of education on the front end," Joe Valentine, the NFL's manager of game and team operations, said. "For example, the airport authorities understanding that this is not like soccer. We're going to have 40,000 pounds of equipment per team. [NFL teams] come with a travel party of 190 to 200 people. It's not 60."

Even before it was announced on April 10 that the Packers would be the Eagles' Week 1 opponent, Klein and a contingent from the Packers flew with Eagles officials, which included Ferrari and Ryan, to Brazil to get the lay of the land. The Cleveland Browns, who were in the running to be the Eagles' foe, also sent representatives. They inspected the stadium and practice facilities and looked at hotel options.

In June, Klein returned to São Paulo with Packers director of performance nutrition Adam Korzun to meet with the hotel about meals. Eagles performance nutrition coordinator Stephanie Coppola also coordinated with their team's hotel to ensure desired food quality and preparation. While the Packers transported their own drinks and snacks (an undertaking of its own), customs limited what could be brought into the country.

Three components were used to get everything -- and everyone -- there:

Shipping crates aboard an ocean cargo liner that left in early June

A shared cargo plane that arrived in Brazil earlier in the week

Individual aircrafts to transport the teams

None of this is cheap, either.

A league source said it costs teams between $750,000 and $1.5 million in expenses for a typical road game. The Brazil game far exceeded that, so the NFL covered the difference between what it would cost the Packers to get to Philadelphia and the cost to get to Brazil because it was originally an Eagles home game.

Then there were the last-minute concerns. The team did a "passport day," as Klein called it, during the mandatory minicamp in June, to make sure every player had the proper paperwork. They also planned for what would happen if general manager Brian Gutekunst added a player who wasn't with them in the offseason and did not have a passport. In that case, they would take that player to the Chicago Passport Agency on an off day to expedite the process. The Eagles similarly had all the necessary visas in place to account for roster changes.