Jéssica reflects on Grêmio job and motherhood while living apart from daughter | OneFootball

On Mother’s Day, Grêmio head coach Jéssica is balancing a new post in Porto Alegre with life away from her three-year-old daughter Luísa and wife Milene in São Paulo.

According to Globo.com, she took charge on 17 March after Cyro Leãs departed. She has coached Realidade Jovem, Ponte Preta and Ferroviária, and as Brazil Under-20 assistant won the Liga Conmebol Evolución in 2021 and the South American title in 2022.

In that national-team spell, Luísa was born via IVF carried by Milene Souza, a week before the Under-20 World Cup in Costa Rica in August 2022. Brazil finished third, and Jéssica confronted being away from her newborn for the first time.

She says she wants her daughter to grow up knowing her mother pursued her dreams, and to feel pride in that legacy. She felt calm because Luísa was safe with her other mother, though she would drop everything if needed.

Soon after the tournament Ferroviária hired her, an offer she called impossible to refuse, accepted because parenting is shared. She says 2022 and 2023 were challenging, and credits Milene, a sports psychologist, for steadfast support.

Milene and Luísa are expected to remain in São Paulo until the end of the first half of the year, then join her.

Until then she manages the distance and leans on motherhood for solace, describing Luísa as joy and a refuge from a competitive world, and her greatest achievement.

Source: Globo.com