Arsenal and City open in Cardiff
Arsenal and Manchester City meet at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Sunday for the 104th Community Shield, a fixture first played in 1908 under its old name of the Charity Shield. Arsenal arrive as reigning Premier League champions, Manchester City as holders of the FA Cup, and Enzo Maresca takes charge of a competitive City match for the first time.
The trophy will be lifted, photographed and filed away. Its value as a guide to the season that follows has been close to nothing for a generation.
The numbers behind the curtain-raiser
There have been 34 Community Shield matches in the Premier League era, dating back to 1992-93. Eight of the winners went on to lift the league title in the same season, a rate of 24%. That figure leans heavily on the 1990s and 2000s. None of the last six Community Shield winners have taken the Premier League that season, and only one of the last 15 managed it, Manchester City in 2018-19.
The losing side has the better record. Ten teams have been beaten in the Shield and gone on to win the league in the same campaign, two more than the winners have managed. Four of the last seven runners-up did it: Liverpool in 2019-20, then City in 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24. When City finally ended a three-match losing run in the fixture by beating Manchester United on penalties in 2024, they finished the league season without the title.
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Haaland in 2022, and what followed
The clearest illustration came in August 2022. Erling Haaland played the full 90 minutes of his first match on English soil, took three shots, scored none of them and hit the crossbar from an open goal as Liverpool won 3-1. Darwin Nunez came on for the last half hour, won a penalty and scored.
Haaland then put away 36 Premier League goals that season, the record for a single campaign, and 52 in all competitions as City won the treble. Nunez finished with nine league goals, Liverpool finished fifth, and the Shield stayed their only trophy of the year.
Last season said the same thing
Crystal Palace won the 2025 Community Shield. Arsenal won the 2025-26 Premier League. Whoever lifts the trophy in Cardiff on Sunday will have won something. The league table will not have noticed.
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