( CNN ) -- Few would argue that football is the planet 's true global game . From Baghdad to Buenos Aires it is watched , played , argued about , loved and hated with an intensity that no other sport can match . Its ubiquity also brings a tremendous amount of power . Dictators and politicians have long tried to harness its ability to inspire unity and national pride for more nefarious political purposes -- be it Argentina 's junta who used the 1978 World Cup to inspire the kind of loyalty that its regime had failed to do , to current Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , who feared and respected football 's power to spark change in equal measure . `` [ Football ] has caused at least one war and many battles , often tragic , off the pitch , '' wrote Melvyn Bragg , nominating the 1863 Rules of Association Football , the football 's first official code , in his `` Twelve Books That Changed the World . '' But sometimes a single match has been at the center of huge social and political changes . Ahead of the start of the 2011 AFC Asian Cup , CNN gives you some of the games that changed the world . Secretary 's XI versus President 's XI ( 1864 ) When 22 men gathered in Battersea Park , London , in the winter of 1864 for a game of football , no-one could imagine the worldwide sporting revolution that would follow . This was the first game played according to the Rules of Association Football , written by the embryonic English Football Association and the first attempt to unite and codify football 's different , not to mention competing , strands . The forward pass had n't been introduced yet , there were no such thing as crossbars and the offside rule was still three years away from being introduced , but the British Victorian need for imprimatur and order meant that the simplified , slimmed-down rules -- just 13 laws -- were easily exported . Which the British did with a proselytizing zeal throughout its colonies and the rest of the world . One such football missionary was Charles William Miller , who in the mid-1890s took a copy of the rules and a football to Brazil , from where it caught on like wild fire . `` A Brazilian taxi driver told me that Charles Miller had invented football . In other words , he 's a legendary figure [ in Brazil ] , but no-one is quite sure what the legend actually is , '' explained Josh Lacey , author of `` God is Brazilian , '' a biography of Miller . `` In Sao Paulo , there is a square named after him . It 's the square outside the stadium where Corinthians play . '' And the match itself ? The Secretary 's XI won 2-0 , with both goals scored by Charles William Alcock , who would himself go on to organize the very first international fixture , between England and Scotland , seven years later . West Germany versus Hungary ( 1954 ) Post-war Germany was a haunted , broken and divided place . Although it was devastated financially by the folly of Nazism and the split between east and west by the emergence of the Iron Curtain , Germans were in a soul-searching funk over their role in the Second World War . The singing of the national anthem was actively discouraged and the country 's new , unloved flag was rarely seen . And then came the `` Miracle of Bern '' at the 1954 World Cup , held in Switzerland . Despite being trounced 8-3 in their first match against Hungary , West Germany made it to the final of the World Cup to face the same opposition . The team was made up solely of amateur footballers , while Hungary -- the best team in the world at the time -- boasted the likes of Ferenc Puskas . No-one gave them a chance , but they won 3-2 , sparking scenes of jubilation back in West Germany and the first positive , collective nationalistic outburst since the war . `` It was a kind of liberation for the Germans from all the things that weighed down upon them after the Second World War , '' German historian Joachim Fest wrote . `` July 4 , 1954 is in certain aspects the founding day of the German Republic . '' From there West Germany boomed economically , becoming the leading nation in Europe . As newspaper Der Spiegel pointed out before a united Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup : `` In one 90-minute match against Hungary , modern-day Germany was born . '' Rangers versus Bucks ( 1966 ) Robben Island is infamous for its most revered prisoner : Nelson Mandela . But the jail , which held what the apartheid South African state viewed to be the most dangerous political prisoners , also gave birth to an unlikely football league . The Makana Football Association was set up by a group of prisoners desperate to break the monotony of prison life . Every week from 1964 onwards a prisoner would ask for permission to play football , and then be punished by the authorities as a result of his temerity . But by 1966 the prison warden relented and a football league was set up based on one of the only books in the prison library : the FIFA rule book . Scores , leagues , disciplinary records and even the results of disciplinary hearings from on-pitch indiscretions were kept , although no record exists of the score between the Rangers and Bucks in the first-ever match . As well as giving the inmates hope during desperate times , the Makana FA had a more important impact : honing the administrative skills of South Africa 's future leaders . Jacob Zuma , the current President , was a tough-tackling defender for the Bucks and a future Makana FA referee . `` It taught them administration ... Robben Island created the new generation of people that struggled for freedom , '' explains Professor Chuck Korr , author of `` More Than Just a Game : Football vs . Apartheid . '' `` And those men thought football was very important in maintaining their sanity and hope for the future . By definition , football is absolutely essential in the way the struggle for freedom is won . '' The Makana FA , although long abandoned , was given honorary FIFA membership in 2007 . Dinamo Zagreb versus Red Star Belgrade ( 1990 ) Yugoslavia was already on the brink of imploding by the time Serbia 's Red Star Belgrade played Croatia 's Dinamo Zagreb at the latter 's Maksimir Stadium . Pro- independence parties had already won recent Croatian elections . But the events that unfolded on March 13 , 1990 are regarded by many as the opening salvo of the most vicious European war since the Nazis were defeated in 1945 . During the match , future AC Milan and Croatia captain Zvonimir Boban launched a kung-fu kick at a policeman who was attacking a Zagreb fan . Riots broke out between Zagreb 's `` Bad Blue Boys '' ultra group , and Red Star 's `` Delije '' -- led by the brutal war-lord Arkan . Arkan 's Tiger 's , the paramilitary group he ruled during the war , recruited heavily from the Delije . Arkan himself was indicted by the United Nations for war crimes , but was assassinated in 2000 before he stood trial . Later , Boban explained what was going through his head . `` Here I was , a public face prepared to risk his life , career and everything that fame could have brought , all because of one ideal cause : the Croatian cause . '' For the rest of the soon-to-be-non-existent country , it was a symbolic moment . `` It was the most important match in Yugoslav history , '' explains Dr. Neven Andjelic , author of `` Bosnia-Herzegovina : The End of a Legacy . '' `` It has political implications and is a clear sign of the forthcoming violence and war that this unfinished match provided to the population . '' The war went on to rage for five years , with the International Center for Transnational Justice estimating that 140,000 people were killed . Its effects are still evident today , not least outside the Maksimir Stadium , where a statue depicting a group of soldiers stands . On it is the inscription : `` To the fans of the club , who started the war with Serbia at this ground on May 13 , 1990 . '' Iraq versus Saudi Arabia ( 2007 ) Younis Mahmoud ran the length of the pitch to celebrate with the handful of fans that had made the long journey to the vast , half-empty stand in Jakarta 's Bung Karno stadium . The captain of the Iraq national team -- a team of Kurds , Sunni and Shia Muslims -- had just scored the only , decisive goal in the 2007 Asian Cup final on July 29 against Saudi Arabia , but it meant much more than the first piece of major silverware for the `` Lions of Mesopotamia . '' Back in Baghdad , tens of thousands of Iraqis poured into the streets , firing celebratory bullets into the air , with many clutching something that had not been seen in numbers since the fall of Saddam : the Iraqi flag . Football had achieved what no politician or general had managed to achieve : a semblance of national unity . According to the U.S. military , there were 1,700 sectarian attacks in Baghdad alone in June 2007 . That had almost halved after the final , to 960 by the end of August . But the victory came at a price . Minutes after Iraq had beaten South Korea in a penalty shoot out in the semifinal , a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of cheering fans , killing 50 people . At the Asian Cup , the victorious team sat , stunned , in the dressing room and contemplated pulling out of the final . But then the players watched the carnage on television . `` One of the victims was a 12-year-old child , '' recalled Mahmoud to the press afterwards . `` His mother , when his body was laid in front of her , she did n't weep , but she said : ' I present my son as a sacrifice for the Iraqi national team . ' We have to win . '' They chose to continue , and the rest is history .
The 2011 Asian Cup kicked off in Qatar earlier this month , with 16 teams taking part . The holders Iraq shocked the world by winning in 2007 and violence there fell afterwards . In a statement on its website, FIFA said it was "aware of reports that some fans have been injured during matches at the 2010 World Cup.