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Resounding success for the Ronaldo/Zidane 2004 Match against Poverty
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The second "Match against Poverty – Ronaldo and friends vs. Zidane and friends", held on 14 December 2004 at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid (Spain) was a great success, with 65 000 enthusiastic supporters in the stands and worldwide broadcasting coverage by fifty television channels over a number of days.
Organized under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to promote the fight against poverty and to collect funds for projects in the field, and in collaboration with FIFA and the Real de Madrid football club, the match took place despite a bomb alert three days earlier at the stadium in Madrid. It was turned into a festival of solidarity, open to all – spectators were invited to make a donation either when they collected their entrance tickets or by paying into a special account set up for the purpose.
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For this very special evening, Ronaldo and Zinédine Zidane, in their capacity as UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors, had gathered together about fifty famous names in football and other sports, including the Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher and the young Spanish winner of the Davis Cup Rafael Nadal, who had volunteered to help mobilisation against poverty make progress and were wearing team shirts bearing the slogan "Match against Poverty".
In a party atmosphere, with players more likely to laugh than contest the comments made by referee Perluigi Collina, the players put on a top-quality show ending in the very fair result of 4 all, watched with satisfaction and pleasure by the Mayor of Madrid Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón Jiménez, Spain's Secretary of State for Sport Jaime Lissavetzky Díez, and more than 450 accredited journalists.
With a view to fairness, Schumacher decided to play 45 minutes in each teams, with unfeigned enthusiasm. Tristan and Raul opened the scoring for Zidane's team within minutes of the start of play. At half-time the score was 3-2 for Zidane's team, despite a penalty by the Spanish rally driver Carlos Sainz. The suspense was kept up right to the final whistle, with an equalising goal by Rui Costa for Ronaldo's team bringing the score to a 4 all draw.
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"It was a great evening. We are all thrilled with the way it went. It was a real pleasure to play with the stars that took the trouble to help us", said Zinédine Zidane, whose team had been coached by Marcello Lippi, Didier Deschamps and Luis Fernandez.
"I would like to thank the public and the media for their wonderful participation, and I would also like to thank all the great players and sportsmen who joined us. As a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador, I am delighted to have been able to gather together so many partners in the fight to combat poverty", added Ronaldo, whose team had been coached by Brazil's Mario Zapallo, Carlos Alberto Pariera and Luiz Felipe Scolari.
"It was a great match and I was very pleased to have been able to play in both teams. This is a magnificent stadium – we had lots of fun and it was a great atmosphere, and the most important thing was that we were all able to contribute to a great cause", said Michael Schumacher, seven times world champion of Formula 1.
The first "Match against Poverty" in Basle raised 1 million Swiss francs (800 000 euros), which UNDP allocated to projects ranging from the creation of small businesses for women to the construction of sports centres for street children and the disadvantaged in Brazil, the Comoros, Guinea Bissau, Morocco, Namibia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
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