Pereira is the youngest and only girl of four children of a Samoan Palagi couple, Joseph – a former rugby leaguer who played for Sydney's Wests Tigers – and Danira.

Once Avondale College made students choose one sport to focus on, and netball had a long sign-up queue due to many girls interested, Pereira opted to attend football classes instead.

[6] The next year, Pereira was the captain of the New Zealand team who won the OFC U-20s, and was given the Golden Ball as the best player of the tournament.

[7] Pereira made her debut with the senior New Zealand team, the "Football Ferns", at the 2014 OFC Women's Nations Cup.

[10] Some time after the 2017 Cyprus Women's Cup, where Pereira scored her first international goal,[11] she announced to be stepping away from the national team, finding hard to balance the football with financial commitments, that forced her to move in with her mother and take two jobs.