Liverpool and Man City fight again in Community Shield final with Nunez vs Haaland and Pep vs Klopp promising a thriller

THE epic nature of the rivalry between Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City almost demanded a Champions League final meeting last May.

When they last met in an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley in April, both managers would have been fully expecting a last tango in Paris to round off another season of this fascinating duopoly.

Instead, owing to the wrecking-ball efforts of Real Madrid, they meet again today in the more low-key environment of a Community Shield at Leicester’s King Power Stadium.

But while the venue has been shifted because of the women’s Euros final at Wembley tomorrow, and the match will rightly be overshadowed by the progress of England’s Lionesses, Liverpool versus City is never a fixture to be sniffed at.

The frenetic tempo and outrageous quality of their two league meetings last season — both of which ended in 2-2 draws — were off the scale.

Klopp and Guardiola, the two longest-serving bosses in the Premier League, have elevated English club football to new levels over the past six seasons.

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Even the Community Shield — a match we usually hype up as if it’s a major trophy, only to forget who even won the thing a week later — has greater pulling power because it is being contested by Liverpool and City.

Few people expect anything other than another two-horse race for the title (runners-up Liverpool finished 18 points clear of third-placed Chelsea last term).

Genuine hostilities will not resume until their league meeting at Anfield on October 15 but there will be much talk of psychological advantages and momentum-building today.

And there is extra intrigue following the summer arrivals of Erling Haaland and Darwin Nunez.

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Not merely because these two new strikers are expensive, high-profile imports, but because they are likely to bring a shift in playing styles for both teams.

It is unusual for such successful sides to undertake a significant reboot. But neither City nor Liverpool have regularly employed out-and-out centre-forwards over the past couple of seasons, so Haaland and Nunez will provide them with more obvious focal points.

Will specialist goalscorers improve them, as logic would suggest? Or could it make them more predictable to play against?

Klopp suggests his side have been struggling in pre-season to adjust to the strengths of Uruguayan Nunez, a £64million capture from Benfica.

It may also take time for Haaland to bed in at City or for Guardiola’s men, so fluid in attack, to get used to new attacking patterns of play.

This rivalry is helped by its longevity. Two managers in charge of two major clubs for as long as six years is rare in the modern game.

Kevin De Bruyne is now the last remaining member of the first-team squad Guardiola inherited from Manuel Pellegrini in 2016.

Plenty would argue Klopp is, pound-for-pound, the better manager as Guardiola has never proved himself at a club who weren’t financially dominant

And while Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Roberto Firmino and Joe Gomez all predate Klopp at Anfield, these are two sides undeniably constructed in the image of their managers.

There is immense mutual respect between them. Guardiola admits that Liverpool’s relentless pursuit has driven his own team to greater heights.

The Reds boss is usually sanguine about the fact Guardiola has enjoyed bigger budgets both here and in Germany, where the Catalan managed Bayern Munich, while Klopp presided at Borussia Dortmund.

Plenty would argue Klopp is, pound-for-pound, the better manager, given that Guardiola has never proved himself at a club who weren’t financially dominant.

Yet Klopp’s shot at immortality — last season’s Quadruple — was wrecked by City’s late comeback against Aston Villa on the final day of the last Premier League season, before Real defeated his team in Paris.

Both men have won too much silverware to worry too much about the destination of the Community Shield. But will it be a great watch, all the same?

With these two sides contesting it, you’d be shocked if it wasn’t.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk