The match between Manchester City and Liverpool will take place on Saturday in the Community Shield, which brings together the champions of the Premier League and Cup every year, against the backdrop of an early conflict between Norwegian newcomer Erling Haaland and Uruguayan Darwin Nunez.

Attention will be on the King Power Stadium a week before the start of the new league season, and a lot of pressure is on Halland and Nunes, who are looking to prove the right to sign them for huge sums of money in the coming months.

City and Liverpool have put more than £100m ($121m) on the table during the summer transfer market to bring in some of the best strikers on the European continent, and the competition for the top spot in English football has intensified in recent years.

However, a lot has changed at the two clubs, especially after Pep Guardiola’s side won the league title last season at the expense of the Reds by an orphan point after turning their late-stage gap against Aston Villa into a historic win. .

City’s fourth league title in the past five seasons reflects City’s impressively stable image, but Guardiola’s exemplary personality and footballing philosophy keep him from resting on his laurels.

The former coach of Barcelona and Bayern Munich opened the door to many of his cadres: Brazilian striker Gabriel Jesus and Ukrainian defender Oleksandr Zinchenko left for Arsenal, Raheem Sterling moved to Chelsea, and Fernandinho returned to Atlético Paranaense.

Realizing that City’s success last season had been achieved despite the absence of a clear striker, Guardiola took the step of bringing in one of the Old Continent’s brightest young stars, 22-year-old Norwegian avant-garde Halland from Borussia Dortmund for £51m.

After failing to wrest international striker Harry Kane from Tottenham’s clutches 12 months ago, Guardiola is hopeful Haaland can match his scoring form in Dortmund, the most demanding English Premier League.

The ability of the young giant player (1.94kg and 88kg) to integrate into City’s creative reserve will be a major element in determining the direction of the race for local and continental titles.

Indeed, early signs look promising as it took Haaland just 12 minutes to open his account in his new team’s shirt in his first match against City, scoring the winning goal in a friendly against Bayern Munich.

– “Nunez needs more support” –

While City start the new season as the most visible candidate to retain their title for the third consecutive season, and whatever the result at King Power Stadium, Liverpool’s threat to their superiority is still clear and present.

German manager Jurgen Klopp’s team nearly touched football glory as they spent the second half of last season in an exciting pursuit of the dream of achieving an unprecedented historic quartet, but failed in the league and main continental competition, collecting Cup and League Cup titles. .

In the league, Liverpool lost to City and Real Madrid beat them 1-0 in the Champions League final. Winning the Cup and the League Cup against the same opposition, Chelsea, and similarly, in a penalty shoot-out scenario, was considered little consolation for the ferocious manager Klopp.

Liverpool have also endured an exciting chapter of rumors and speculation about the departure of their most prominent stars, led by Egyptian striker Mohamed Salah, and the club finally put an end to speculation about the future of the league’s best player last year by linking him to a new one. contract.

In exchange for keeping their Egyptian star, Liverpool failed to do the same with Senegalese Sadio Mane, who chose to leave for Bayern Munich to get the club hit hard, but Klopp filled the void left by the international striker when he initially paid 64. million pounds as the value of the deal could rise to a club record £85m to sign Nunez from Benfica.

The 23-year-old Uruguayan striker began his career at his new club in the warm-up round amid criticism for missing out on many easy chances in a 0-4 friendly loss to Manchester United before showing his teeth with four of five victories against Leipzig to come back and score quickly again in Liverpool’s 0-1 defeat against Austrian Salzburg.

Klopp rushed to his Uruguayan striker’s defense, saying: “He needs more support around him. You have to keep the other players in the spotlight so he doesn’t focus on him. It’s the way it is, it doesn’t make you feel comfortable, but we deal with it the way it is.”

While winning the Charity Shield, in which Liverpool have held the title 15 times, most recently in 2006, is considered secondary when the hour for important titles hits at the end of the new season, Klopp is well aware of the psychological importance of any victory over his worst rival City, saying: “It’s a very important game. But the problem is that we still have to prepare for the season, so we can’t ignore it.”

“Will this (charity shield) affect the season? I expect to see two good teams on the field,” he concluded.