Liverpool claimed the Community Shield with a 3-1 win over Manchester City.
Trent Alexander-Arnold broke the deadlock on 22 minutes when he met Mohamed Salah’s cutback with a first-time shot from all of 20 yards out.
But Julian Alvarez drew the Premier League champions level midway through the second half by scrambling the ball home after Adrian parried a Phil Foden effort.
Eight minutes from time, Ruben Dias gifted Jurgen Klopp’s side a penalty by handling Darwin Nunez’s header which allowed Mohamed Salah to convert.
Substitute Nunez added a third in stoppage time when he stooped to meet an Andy Robertson knockdown from Salah’s cross into the City penalty area.
Here were the key talking points from the King Power Stadium:
New setting, but same old rivalry
Anyone dismissing this as a glorified pre-season friendly was given a crash course as to why Liverpool and Manchester City remain the gold standard.
The location may have changed temporarily but little about this contest lent itself to a leisurely preamble ahead of next weekend’s Premier League return.
Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola would not want it to be any other way.
Leicester’s King Power Stadium witnessed what has become one of the most anticipated games in English football played out at its peak intensity levels.
Although the Reds drew first blood and enjoyed the lion’s share of chances in the opening half-hour, City went on to match them virtually pound for pound.
It was only a matter of time before the fine margins which separated them both last season and in 2018/19 again came to the fore in the closing stages.
On this evidence, Liverpool are set to push their North West counterparts every step of the way in the pair’s latest battle for domestic dominance.
Time will tell whether this proves to be a foreshadowing for Pep Guardiola or
Nunez already up and running
Much of the pre-match discussion centred on both clubs’ summer strikers.
At a potential £85 million each, it was inevitable that Darwin Nunez and Erling Haaland would be under the microscope in their first head-to-head meeting.
City’s new no.9 appeared promising on his full debut but failed to burst Adrian’s goal despite being presented with a glut of goal-scoring chances.
Nunez, however, appears to already be up and running after a second-half cameo which saw his name regularly reverberating around the King Power.
Successive one-v-one situations against Ederson highlighted both the Uruguay international’s searing pace and guile to bring the ball into danger areas.
His menacing presence in the box also saw Ruben Dias make an unforced error in handling the ball, allowing Liverpool to retake their lead late on.
Yet he saved the best for last by meeting a Mohamed Salah cross which Andy Robertson had the foresight to allow to run through to his new teammate.
First impressions can often be misleading in football, yet Nunez appears to possess many of the qualities which will make him a fearsome prospect.
Klopp finally completes the set
Whether or not he admits it, Klopp’s motivation for this game extended beyond the need to set down a marker for the forthcoming campaign.
The Community Shield represented a blemish on the German’s otherwise glittering CV throughout his six-and-a-half-year tenure as Liverpool manager.
While the FA Cup and Carabao Cup became belated additions to his personal Anfield trophy cabinet last season, this was the one which kept getting away.
Prior to the latest instalment of the season’s traditional curtain-raiser, Klopp had led his team up first to the Shield’s medals’ podium in consecutive years.
On both occasions, a penalty shootout saw the trophy elude him as much as the Premier League title had previously evaded his serial trophy hunters.
Crossing off the final frontier of a domestic set off his list is unlikely to change in Klopp’s mindset, though. It will only add to his determination to win more.