Maradona, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Rafa Márquez, Ronaldinho, Cafú, Hernán Crespo, and former Mexican top scorer and Telemundo Deportes commentator Carlos Hermosillo will be among the soccer legends participating in this star-studded sports event to support social and educational programs.

Telemundo Deportes presents Pope Francis’s second “United for Peace” soccer match, airing for the first time ever in the United States on Wednesday, October 12 at 3PM ET/2PM CT/12PM PT, exclusively on Telemundo and its digital platforms: TelemundoDeportes.com, the Telemundo Deportes EN VIVO app, and, for the first time in Telemundo Deportes history, Facebook Live.  An impressive lineup of international soccer stars will take part in the event, including Diego Armando Maradona, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Rafa Márquez, Hernán Crespo, Ronaldinho, Cafú and former Mexican top scorer and Telemundo Deportes commentator Carlos Hermosillo. 

Players will be divided into two teams, one that includes players from Spain's “La Liga” and the other representing "the rest of the world.” Acclaimed Deportes Telemundo sportscaster Andrés Cantor and commentator Manuel Sol will bring viewers all of the action from the Olympic Stadium in Rome, Italy, where the exhibition match will raise funds for educational and social programs offered by Scholas Occurrentes, the Pope’s international foundation.

“Inspired by the passion shared by US Hispanic millennials and their over indexing of mobile digital and social media we have developed an innovative programming strategy for this unique match that celebrates youth and peace,” said Peter Blacker, Executive Vice President, Digital Media and Emerging Business, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

"For the first time-ever the match will be available in all NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises platforms including Telemundo, NBC UNIVERSO, the Telemundo Deportes App, Telemundo.com, Social@Telemundo and FacebookLive”. 

The “United for Peace” match will be rebroadcast on Sunday, October 16 at 6AM ET/5 AM CT/10AM PT on NBC UNIVERSO.

Funds raised from the “United for Peace” exhibition match will finance projects with the common goal of creating a culture of peace, especially among children and young people in marginal areas of the world who suffer from a lack of basic education, aid and development services.  In Italy, the foundation will help rebuild basic sports facilities and train teachers and instructors in Amatrice, the town devastated by an earthquake this past August 24.

In June, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and Scholas Occurrentes, Pope Francis’s initiative to connect, educate and inspire millennials around the world through technology, the arts and education, signed a partnership to promote a series of projects.  These commitments include broadcasting the second “Match for Peace” on television and digital platforms and producing a special program about the foundation’s work to mobilize young people, including the first “social-a-thon” to raise funds on social media.