
The English football season has today officially got underway with the traditional FA Community Shield, a match held the Sunday before the new Premier League season kicks off, between the league champions and FA Cup winners. Last season, however, Manchester City won both the Premier League and FA Cup, and so Liverpool earned the right to take part by virtue of finishing runners-up in the Premier League.
It was an entertaining game in which Manchester City took the lead thanks to Raheem Sterling scoring for the first time against his former club inside the opening 12 minutes. Mo Salah had a decent opening to level the scoring five minutes later, but ended up putting his shot into the side netting, and then on the half hour mark had another chance but toe-poked his shot over the bar. Those were really the notable opportunities in the first half, which also saw Man City manager Pep Guardiola shown a yellow card in protest at a decision by referee Martin Atkinson.
The second half, however, was certainly not dull. Raheem Sterling should have doubled Man City's lead early on but hit the post after the Liverpool defence got horribly exposed by a through ball, before Liverpool themselves then hit the underside of the bar not long after through defender Virgil van Dijk from a corner, though the ball had not crossed the line. The post was struck again, this time by Salah - before then Raheem Sterling had another glorious opportunity after Liverpool's defence was in sixes and sevens, but it seemed that Sterling had too much time to make up his mind and van Dijk got back in time to put him off from shooting or squaring the ball to Kyle Walker who had a simple tap-in. Liverpool were ramping up the pressure and forced many saves out of Man City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, before finally equalising from a free-kick after van Dijk got round the back post and passed it to Joel Matip who finished very well to level up the match. It was ultimately how it finished, and as is tradition with the Community Shield, the match headed to penalties.
Manchester City converted all their 5 penalty kicks, though Liverpool's Georginio Wijnaldum saw his penalty saved by Bravo after a poor attempt - and Gabriel Jesus scored the penalty to give Manchester City the Community Shield for a second successive season.
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