The 2018/19 English football season has officially got underway with the 2018 FA Community Shield, a match involving last season's Premier League champions and last season's FA Cup winners, Manchester City and Chelsea respectively, with reigning Premier League champions Manchester City coming out on top in a 2-0 victory thanks to a brace from Sergio Aguero.
Two interesting starters in today's match were Phil Foden, 18, and Callum Hudson-Odoi, 17, playing for Manchester City and Chelsea respectively.
Manchester City started off the better of the two teams, and were duly rewarded when Aguero gave them the lead in the 13th minute after a lovely run by Foden, who gave him the assist. That said, it was far too easy for Foden to run through and Chelsea could certainly have defended that better. City were the better team throughout the match, and also looked the fitter of the 2 teams.
Chelsea's first decent opening came in the 25th minute, when Alvaro Morata cut inside onto his right foot, but shot fairly wide off target. After that shot, the teams quickly took a 2-minute water break due to the extremely high temperatures that this match was being played in.
Chelsea's own youngster, Hudson-Odoi, had a decent performance, although was perhaps less impressive than City's youngster, Foden. That said, he was arguably Chelsea's most dangerous player in attack with the promise of his pace. On around 30 minutes, he cut inside and hit a decent shot, though it was also off target, if a bit closer than Morata's earlier effort. He then had a decent shot in the 34th minute which forced a save from City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, although Bravo should probably have caught the shot at the first attempt and not unconvincingly got it away, but little matter in the end.
Claudio Bravo was overall pretty decent in goal for Manchester City, though he did have one very hairy moment at the end when a long ball from Chelsea's left-back Marcos Alonso bounced over him, but fortunately for him he gathered it just in time.
Chelsea's defence were rather poor to say the least at times, and they were getting caught out time and time again, particularly David Luiz. He got caught out big time early on in the second half after a brilliant pass from Foden managed to get Sergio Aguero in behind after he (Aguero) broke Chelsea's offside trap, and Aguero should really have converted his chance, but hit the side-netting instead. However, Aguero was much more clinical with his next chance, after Chelsea were caught out yet again in defence, and Aguero this time rolled the ball into the back of the net to double City's lead.
That second goal seemed to kill Chelsea off once and for all, and City took full control of the game. Chelsea were constantly getting caught out in defence, and did not look at all comfortable playing with a back 4 system, and it exposed David Luiz's inability to play as one of 2 centre-backs.
Other points of note were Man City's dominance of the midfield, were Chelsea looked weak and were absolutely outclassed. In their defense, however, you could argue that they were without key midfielder N'Golo Kante, who is still on holiday following his World Cup success with France.
Another youngster who came in for Man City and had a decent performance was Brahim Diaz, who was well-denied by goalkeeper Willy Caballero. In the end it was a 2-0 win for City, and a convincing performance for that matter.