Wembley Awaits: Liverpool And Crystal Palace Clash For Season’s First Silverware | OneFootball

The first piece of silverware in England is up for grabs this weekend as Premier League champions Liverpool take on FA Cup winners Crystal Palace at Wembley in the latest edition of the Community Shield, the traditional curtain-raiser for the 2025/26 season.

Liverpool will be playing in their 25th Community Shield, having lifted the trophy 16 times. In contrast, Crystal Palace will be making their first-ever appearance in the competition.

Liverpool produced a strong performance in their opening pre-season game against Preston, with Arne Slot’s team running out 3-1 winners thanks to goals from Conor Bradley, Darwin Núñez, and Cody Gakpo. The match also gave fans their first glimpse of three new signings in action, Giorgi Mamardashvili, Milos Kerkez, and Jeremie Frimpong, all of whom featured.

A dominant 4-0 win over Stoke City behind closed doors followed, before the Reds began their tour of Asia. Their first stop saw them suffer a 4-2 defeat to AC Milan in Hong Kong, but they bounced back with a 3-1 victory in Japan over Yokohama Marinos. That match also marked a milestone as big-money signing Florian Wirtz scored his first goal in a Liverpool shirt, as he slots in alongside the likes of Mohamed Salah and Gakpo.

One standout performer for Liverpool over the past month has been 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha, whose dribbling and sharpness on the ball have left defenders terrified and Liverpool fans beaming with excitement about what he can offer the team. He opened the scoring against Athletic Club as Liverpool enjoyed back-to-back wins 4-1 and 3-2 over the Basque side on Monday. It was Ngumoha’s second goal of the tour and his fourth goal involvement overall, having contributed two goals and two assists.

Hugo Ekitike joined the Merseyside club from Eintracht Frankfurt while the team was on tour in Asia, and after just two appearances, he’s already shown glimpses of what he can bring to the side.

Crystal Palace’s FA Cup triumph has secured them a spot in European competition for the first time in the club’s history. While they initially qualified for the UEFA Europa League, multi-club ownership rules have forced them to drop into the UEFA Europa Conference League instead. Palace will begin their European journey on August 21st in the qualifying rounds.

Crystal Palace have had a lengthy pre-season, which began on July 12th with a 1-0 win over Millwall and a 1-1 draw with Cray Wanderers. Similar to what Liverpool did on Monday, Palace played two matches on the same day, fielding two different XIs to get valuable minutes into players’ legs.

Following that, Palace cruised to a 3-0 victory over Crawley, then played out a thrilling 4-3 defeat to Mainz. They also faced Augsburg twice on the same day, winning one match 3-1 and losing the other 1-0, as they continued to rotate the squad and fine-tune preparations ahead of the new season.

The London club haven’t been busy in the transfer market, bringing in just two players so far — Borna Sosa from Ajax and goalkeeper Walter Benítez on a free transfer. The future of Eberechi Eze has dominated headlines at Selhurst Park, but for now, he remains a Palace player and will be aiming to help deliver more silverware for the club when they take to the pitch on Sunday.

The time for preparation is over. While the Community Shield may be a curtain-raiser, a packed-out Wembley and silverware on the line will make it feel like the season truly begins now.