Community Shield Preview

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The football season is starting to take shape as leagues across Europe will be starting this month. For the English football season, the curtain raiser is the FA Community Shield or the Charity Shield when the winner of the Premier League and the FA Cup battle it out at Wembley Stadium in anticipation for the upcoming season.

Despite the little significance of the Charity Shield, both sides will be looking to lay down a marker this season. Manchester City, who won a domestic treble last season, will face Liverpool, league runners-up, on Sunday which will rekindle their rivalry from last season which gave us an exhilarating title race that went down to the very wire.

Jürgen Klopp's men narrowly misses out on the title losing it to City.  Despite losing just one game and gaining 97 points, the third highest in Premier League history but they still had a happy ending, winning the Champions League. City were dominant last season, winning the League, FA Cup and the Carabao Cup, a domestic treble. The first team in English football to achieve that feat and placed themselves as one of the best teams in recent history.

For Liverpool, this is their first appearance in the Charity Shield since winning it in 2006. They are also the joint second most decorated team in the competition with 15. For Manchester City, they are the holders of the Shield and if they defend it, they will win it back to back for the first time in their history.

For the holders, they have had a quiet pre-season, playing just four times mostly against weaker opposition. They have spent their pre-season in the Far East and participated in the Premier League Asia Trophy. For Liverpool, they have taken on the likes of Borussia Dortmund, Sporting Lisbon, Napoli and Lyon in their pre-season in the United States, winning one of the four games. The Reds have spent majority of their pre-season without some of their star players who were away on international duty with the Copa America and the Africa Cup of Nations.

It's unlikely that both teams will be in full force on Sunday with the likes of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Alisson, Gabriel Jesus and Riyad Mahrez just joining their teams with Sadio Mané unavailable and wouldn't feature on Sunday.

Nevertheless, this is the opener for the new season with two of the beat teams in Europe last season battling out on Sunday at Wembley.

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