August 11 – For what is sometimes dismissed as a glorified friendly, the FA Community Shield between Premier League champions Liverpool and FA Cup winners Crystal Palace delivered a football feast that ended with the Eagles soaring at Wembley Stadium after penalty shootout drama.
Back in May, Palace goalkeeper and England hopeful Dean Henderson was the hero, denying Omar Marmoush from the spot as the Eagles stunned Manchester City. This time around, he doubled his tally by saving from Alexis Mac Allister and Harvey Elliott in front of massed Liverpool support.
With Mohamed Salah also blazing his effort over the bar, it was left to substitute Justin Devenny to supply the coup de grâce, slamming his spot kick past Alisson to give the Londoners their second trophy in three months.
While the Palace team that defeated City was unchanged, Liverpool showed off almost £300 million worth of new players in the highly impressive Hugo Ekitiké, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez and their record signing Florian Wirtz.
Ekitiké opened his account within four minutes with a superbly worked goal, while Frimpong added an emotional second in the 20th minute as the Reds fans were applauding the memory of Diogo Jota, who tragically passed away in June.
Between those strikes, Jean-Philippe Mateta scored from the spot after a trip from Virgil van Dijk on Ismaïla Sarr, who would have a major influence on proceedings.
A highly watchable first half saw Liverpool dominate with their new signings looking comfortable. Arne Slot will be confident his club can mount a strong defence of their title.
The second half saw Palace show remarkable resilience, and they thoroughly deserved their equaliser through Sarr after growing in confidence and proving their FA Cup victory was no fluke.
After the game, Henderson couldn’t hide his delight saying: “I love the big moments, I love being in that pressure moment. The homework we did on penalties was great,”
“They have unbelievable players and have a great team but two trophies in three months is incredible.
“These emotions are fantastic. With them 2-1 up you think we are out the game. The manager said we’d get chances and we did.”
On the other side of the coin, Liverpool captain, Virgil van Dyke, who has made a habit of lifting trophies played off the defeat with a straight bat saying, “Obviously today we lost so that is not a good start, but we will have to take it game by game.
“That is the mindset and has always been the mindset for us, it is going to be a very intense season in all competitions, and we have to be ready to show our quality in that sense.
“There were good things but there are also plenty of things that we have to improve, and we have to work on and that is our plan now.
“You want to win this game, it is a final, it is a trophy that we play for and that is a disappointing part of it.”
Whether the Eagles get to showcase this form in the UEFA Europa League or Conference League will be decided by the suits in Switzerland tomorrow. However, on a gorgeous Wembley afternoon, they flew once more and were good value for their first-ever FA Community Shield trophy.
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