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LONDON — Given the extraordinary events of last season, given their simmering, epic, evolving rival — that will only continue to rise — it was inevitable that Manchester City and Liverpool pushed each other all the way yet again when they met up once more.

In the end it was City who retained the Community Shield with second-choice goalkeeper Claudio Bravo the unlikely hero as he saved from Georginio Wijnaldum in the penalty shoot-out after making a series of remarkable saves during the game. City converted all five of their kicks to claim the win.

This trophy is the traditional curtain-raiser and on this evidence we are set for another outstanding campaign.

With their domestic dominance City may be the team to beat but Liverpool laid down an emphatic marker that they might just be the team to do that.

If the first-half belonged, just, to City then Liverpool were undeniably the better side in the second period.

They struck the woodwork twice and, overall, Mohamed Salah maybe had five or six chances that he would have expected to take on another day.

There was even a seventh, in injury-time, as he ran clear only for Bravo — who was simply superb with Ederson on the bench — to deny him again.

Even then Salah met the rebound and headed goalwards with Kyle Walker sprinting back to execute a remarkable goal-line clearance. It kind of summed it all up. The skill, the drama, the fine, fine margins. It had seemed set to be Raheem Sterling’s day as he continuing his remarkable form from last season by claiming a predatory goal in the first-half.

It was the 101st of his career but the first against his former club by Sterling who started at centre-forward, then went out to the left after an injury to Leroy Sane and tormented England colleagues Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander-Arnold with his strength and trickery. — Telegraph.