Manchester City and Liverpool to kick off Premier League season in FA Community Shield
Two teams that won everything last season, two coaches who know each other inside out. The Community Shield means one thing — the Premier League is back, baby!
What is the Community Shield for? That was Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp’s question this week.
It’s more serious than a preseason friendly but less competitive than any other game of the English football season. Technically it is a “super cup” — a term for a game which is very rarely quite the opposite of super.
Maybe you like to classify it as a “curtain-raiser”, an antiquated term which has nothing to do with football but indicates the show is about to begin.
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Only, in English football, the show never ends. Liverpool striker Sadio Mane and Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez only finished their 2018-19 season on July 19 in the African Cup of Nations final. That’s an 11-month season. And only three weeks before the Premier League kicks off.
And neither were involved in the month of globe-trotting preseason fixtures both clubs took part in, which are now a genuine fixture on the Premier League calendar. Part expanded training exercises, part fully functional international marketing manoeuvres.
From New York to Shanghai, Premier League clubs spend their spare time raising curtains in every corner of the globe that deepens links with their international fans and strengthens ties with the sponsors, partners, chosen drink brands, tyre manufacturers and bespoke milliners of choice.
Where once the Community Shield was the signal that 3pm Saturday afternoons were booked in, now it does at least mean that all the peripheral business is finally over. Now all that preseason optimism is about to be put to the test.
Which begs the question, how much more optimistic can the domestic treble champions and the reigning European champions be?
Does repeating unparalleled success even count as optimism? Does all-conquering dominance really need hope?
What will we learn when Manchester City take on Liverpool at Wembley at midnight Monday morning AEST? Not a great deal that we don’t already know. Two clubs who beat almost everyone else last season and could only be separated by a point on the final day of the league come together again. What has changed?
Neither club’s line-up will be significantly different as success negated the need for radical restructuring or a saucer-eyed buying frenzy.
Pep Guardiola spent $110 million on Atletico Madrid holding midfielder Rodri as a long-term successor to ageing and injury prone Brazilian Fernandinho, surprisingly making the Spain international the club’s record signing. Somehow, you’d think City would have splashed more cash than that — but not all on one man, and Guardiola expects the 22-year-old to be a City linchpin for the next decade.
Other than that, the only other incomer is Spanish leftback Angelino, who is actually rejoining the club after a year at PSV.
After ruling England last season and with ongoing concerns over financial fair play, City have little reason to change something that already clearly works almost to perfection.
Liverpool’s transfer news somehow manages to be even less thrilling … goalkeeper Andy Lonergan on a free, 16-year-old attacker Harvey Elliott — and the big buy … 17 year-old Dutch defender Sepp van den Berg for an eye-watering $2.3 million.
Of course, this isn’t the only business going on at Anfield. Without a City style sugar daddy, Liverpool’s must balance their income streams sensibly so Jurgen Klopp’s army of suits have busied themselves tying down all the club’s Champions League heroes to extended and better paying contracts, with the sums involved likely to equal any upfront outlay on a headline — grabbing new addition. And, just like City, after such a season of sustained quality, why spend big unless crisis demands action?
As such, when the two sides stroll out at Wembley they will largely be the same that pair demolished everyone else last season. Which begs the question; does this Community Shield even need a preview written about it?
We largely know how both teams will line up, we know how they will play and neither coach will ask his players to risk injury by over-extending themselves in a game that has no consequence.
Yet despite all this, football fans care about the Community Shield. Because it is the starter’s pistol. It is the unofficial clock change, when, wherever you live, your life is once again ruled by the fixture list, late nights and early mornings, information instead of rumours, extended highlights and Twitter goals, fantasy football permutations and gambles. It is the uber season that presides over the shambles of winter and the gaudiness of summer. It means that every day of the week football is back.
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