As a child, Pretinha had played football with her brothers on the streets of Rio. She joined her first club Mendanha Futebol Clube at the age of 14. After being elevated to the Brazilian national team, she was signed by the female section of CR Vasco da Gama. At the time of the 1999 Women's World Cup in the United States, Pretinha was earning around $3,400 per month from her contract with Vasco. When the American professional Women's United Soccer Association started in 2001, Pretinha and compatriot Roseli were assigned to Washington Freedom in the inaugural draft. Pretinha scored the only goal in the league's first ever match; a second half penalty kick at the Bay Area CyberRays. With four goals in her first five games Pretinha led the early season scoring charts, she finished the campaign with five goals having played in all 21 league games. At the end of the inaugural season Washington traded Pretinha to the CyberRays. During her first season with her new club in 2002, coach Ian Sawyers handed Pretinha a deeper midfield role. In June 2003 she scored twice at Washington Freedom to salvage a draw for the CyberRays against her old club. The team's top–goalscorer, Pretinha missed the culmination of the CyberRays' 2003 campaign after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee during an international friendly between Brazil and the United States in July 2003. With the collapse of WUSA and the lack of structure in Brazilian women's football, Pretinha was without a club while recuperating from her injury. She played in the Athens Olympics as a free agent, then joined Japanese L. League team INAC Kobe Leonessa in 2005.
International career
When the Brazil women's national football team were preparing for the inaugural 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup, they played a training match against a Liga Desportiva de Nova Iguaçu select team containing a 16–year–old Pretinha. Brazil won easily but Pretinha excelled to the extent that she was added to the national team panel for the World Cup. The aeroplane journey to Guangdong in China was the first time that the young Pretinha had travelled outside the state of Rio. The knee injury sustained by Pretinha in July 2003 ruled her out of Brazil's squad for the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup.
