The Community Shield promised to be a story about two new strikers, and Liverpool defeated Manchester City to complete Jurgen Klopp's trophy collection.
Darwin Nunez came off the bench to seal the Reds' 3-1 victory. Meanwhile, Erling Haaland struggled to find his feet in his competitive debut.
In the annual clash between the reigning Premier League champions and FA Cup holders, Liverpool started strongly, with Mo Salah and Jordan Henderson finding plenty of space down their right flank.
The Reds scored through Trent Alexander-Arnold in a first half that was understandably full of misplaced passes, poor touches, and minor lapses in concentration. With his effort curling outwards onto the back post and in, he gave Liverpool a deserved lead. The ball was glanced in by Nathan Ake's head, but the goal was primarily due to Alexander-Arnold and the man who assisted him, Salah, being given too much space to operate.
City gained a foothold and eventually an equalizer in the second period, with Argentinian Julian Alvarez scoring his first goal for City. Adrian parried Phil Foden's first-time strike to Alvarez, who made no mistake with 20 minutes remaining, even though an offside call was overturned thanks to VAR.
Despite a brief resurgence from Pep Guardiola's men, who threatened to turn the screw, Liverpool regained control. Nunez's header struck the hand of Ruben Dias, prompting VAR to award the penalty kick. Salah took a step forward and fired low to Ederson's left.
Nunez's head was about to play another crucial role, as he stooped low to finish the curtain-raiser in style. The centre-forward had been booed to the rafters all afternoon, and he relished his special moment with the fans, ripping his shirt off in celebration.
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| Darwin Nunez celebrated his goal in fine style CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES |
Klopp has now won every trophy available to him as Liverpool boss, lifting the Community Shield at the third time of asking, following penalty shoot-out losses to Arsenal and City previously. He's assembled one of the top two teams on the planet, and is unfortunate the other one of those is City.
After narrowly missing out on the title to Guardiola on the final day of last season, and failing to win any of his last five Premier League games against the Citizens, Klopp has now set down an early marker in the next chapter of this thrilling rivalry.