ENGLISH football's traditional curtain-raiser should be a mouth-watering occasion at Wembley between the two best teams last season when Manchester City entertain Liverpool in the Community Shield.
City held off a strong challenge from Liverpool to win the title and the Anfield giants' season went a bit flat at the end as their hunt for multiple trophies fell apart.
This season, both clubs have added to their depth by significantly strengthening and it could be another close call between them.
Liverpool splashed out a cool £85 million to land Darwin Nunez from Benfica, although they lost Sadio Mane in the summer too.
And City invested over £100 million to sign Erling Haaland and Kalvin Phillips from Borussia Dortmund and Leeds United.
Of course, the question with the Community Sheild is how seriously both teams take the event. It's very much lost its appeal in recent years and means next to nothing now apart from getting more minutes into the players' legs.
Last season, Leicester City won the trophy by beating City and went on to have a miserable season while City triumphed in the league.
So team line-ups will be very important ahead of the clash.
How the bookies view it
City are favourites and can be backed at 6/4 by SBK. BetVictor have Liverpool at 2/1 and the draw is 12/5 with William Hill.
Liverpool are evens to lift the trophy with William Hill and City are 4/5 with Boylesports.
Recent head to heads
Last season's epic battle was illustrated by both of their league games finishing in 2-2 draws, although Liverpool did triumph in the FA Cup semi-final.
Here's the last meeting in the league below.
Players to watch
All eyes will be on the new boys here. The 22-year-old Haaland scored a sensational 62 league goals in 59 starts for Dortmund and a goal at Wembley would be a nice way to introduce himself to the City faithful. He is 7/5 to score with Unibet.
Nunez would also love to mark his competitive debut with a goal and he is 11/5 with bet365.
Anything else catch the eye?
Given the sides cancelled each other out last season in the league and the fact that three of the last five Community Shields have ended in a stalemate, a draw is the obvious conclusion here.
Neither side would be devastated to lose the game and the days of this game being some sort of marker for the season are long gone. It's hard to trust either team to give it a real go.
If there are to be goals. Haaland should be right up there to grab one. He's utterly prolific and City should afford him plenty of ammunition.
This Community Shield match between Manchester City and Liverpool will be played on Jul 30, 2022 and kick off at 17:00. Check below for our tipsters best Manchester City vs Liverpool prediction. You may also visit our dedicated betting previews section for the most up to date previews.
I sure it is well documented that this game will be played at the King Power Stadium (Leicester) not Wembley.