Liverpool won the first battle ahead of much tougher to come as the battle to be the best team in England looks certain to be between Manchester City and the Merseysiders again.
Goals from Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez were ultimately enough to decide the 2022 Community Shield despite a first goal for Julian Alvarez in City blue as everyone came away from the King Power Stadium feeling like, for all the transfer activity of both clubs over the summer, not much has changed.
Yet. Make no mistake that both teams tried extremely hard to win this game, but City will not be too disappointed about how their afternoon unfolded.
As Jurgen Klopp said this week, this is a competition that matters if you win it and means less if you don't; City's 2019 win over Liverpool in this match was one of four trophies they went on to win in that year, yet nobody at the Etihad has thought again about the defeat to Leicester last season since it happened. Also read: Man City player ratings vs Liverpool FC as De Bruyne good, Cancelo poor The line-ups usually tell you just how competitive the club wants this friendly to be, and neither line-up would look out of place in the Premier League next week.