Welcome to our live coverage of Liverpool v Manchester City in the Community Shield, the traditional curtain-raiser to the top-flight campaign.
These two teams have dominated English football in recent seasons, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see them battle it out for the Premier League title once again this year.
It remains to be seen how much this game will tell us about any potential title race, and it will also be interesting to see how the two managers line up today at the King Power Stadium, which hosts the Euro 2022 final clash between England and England Germany take place tomorrow at Wembley.
You’d imagine neither Jurgen Klopp nor Pep Guardiola want to give their rivals any chance of a minor mental edge ahead of the campaign, but that has to be balanced against the requirements of ongoing pre-season training.
Both sides have also slightly changed their attacking options this year, with reliable goalscorers Raheem Sterling and Sadio Mane replaced by bright youngsters Erling Haaland and Darwin Nunez, and it could be a first real glimpse of how these new gears fit in two well…oiled winning machines.
However, Klopp has already suggested it will be a revitalization rather than a reinvention for his side.
The German said: “We want to be the team that nobody wants to play against because when they have the ball, they have pressure everywhere and when we have the ball we have to be more consistent and then when we have the ball we have to create new ways, we have to help the guys with the positioning, not invent new ones, that’s not necessary but include new things here and there. That’s what we were really working on.”
Today’s game will start at 5pm live on ITV. We’ll have all the pre-match build-up before then and live updates afterwards.