The FA Community Shield, the traditional curtain raiser to the new Premier League season, takes place on Saturday but not at its traditional venue.
Liverpool and went toe-to-toe for the Premier League title last season with ’s side emerging victorious following a titanic struggle which saw them retain the trophy by a soliary point after a miraculous comeback against on the final day.
’s men scooped a significant consolation prize in the former of a domestic cup double which culminated in a penalty shootout win over Chelsea at Wembley.
The home of the national team isn’t in use this afternoon, however, with the famous old venue undergoing something of a makeover ahead of Sunday’s Women’s Euro 2022 final between England in Germany.
Instead, City and Liverpool will battle it out for the first silverware of the new season at Leicester City’s King Power stadium, which boasts a relatively modest capacity of just over 32,000.
It is not the first time in recent years the fixture has been played as a neutral venue with Villa Park playing host to Chelsea and City a decade ago when Wembley was in use during the 2012 Olympics.
For Guardiola and Klopp today’s game offers a chance to land an early psychological blow with both teams likely to feature prominently in the title race again.
Eyes will be centered on headline summer recruits Darwin Nunez and Erling Haaland who will be expected to shoulder the goalscoring burden for both clubs respectively.
‘He’s settled really well with the team and that is important. The good vibes in the locker room is more important than any advice or any other thing you can say,’ said Guardiola of the Norway international who lit up the Bundesliga during his time at Borussia Dortmund.
‘We try to get to know each other in training, we can see what we want to do and what we did in previous seasons. His quality will do the rest.
‘If we make good football, respect the process like we know, create a lot of chances, put the ball close to the box, we know that Erling has this incredible talent to score goals.
‘But he will not do it alone. We have to help him, and the way to help him is to make good processes, offensively and defensively, bring the most amount of chances close to the box. And after we have the feeling that he will score. But if we play no good, if we play bad, he will not score goals that’s for sure.’
Nunez, meanwhile, has made a slightly inauspicious start to his Liverpool career following his club record £85million move from Benfica, despite a four-goal salvo against RB Leipzig earlier this month.
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