This Week’s Football Highlights

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Liverpool vs Manchester City

The curtain raiser to the English football season comes earlier than usual this year. We’ll see the top two teams who battled out right till the last day of the last season to win the Premier League, come up against each other as an early test of their credentials for the upcoming season. Whilst this is essentially a ‘glorified friendly’ match both teams will want to make a statement with the start of the league only one week away.

Both teams have a couple of new players to include in their starting line-ups. Manchester City have to their formidable forward line as well as some steel in midfield, in the form of Kalvin Philips. While Liverpool have added Uruguayan hotshot Darwin Nunez to their front line. Both teams are likely to be able to field strong teams for this match, although we can still expect some rotation and multiple substitutions as certain players are likely to be further behind others in their pre-season preparation.

Manchester City are slight favourites to win with few goals expected as this is traditionally a low-scoring match, with the last five all producing two or fewer goals. The match will be played away from Wembley due to a clash with the final of the Women’s European Championship. The last time that took place, City were triumphant over Chelsea in 2012. Last season both league matches between the two ended in draws and Liverpool triumphed in the FA Cup meeting.

Women’s European Championship Final

England vs Germany

England will be full of confidence going into this match after their semi-final demolition of Sweden and overall level of performance in this tournament. They will also have a home crowd to cheer them on and will be hoping to win their first major tournament having made excellent progress over recent years.

Manager Sarina Weigman will be looking to win her second European Championship having led her native Holland to victory in 2017, and following that up by reaching the World Cup final in 2019. After three consecutive defeats in semi-finals, England will be hoping to finish the job on Sunday and write their names on the much-coveted trophy.

Germany found their semi-final a bit more tricky, beating France 2-1 courtesy of two goals from their Captain Alexandra Popp. That result sets up a repeat of 2009 final, which Germany won convincingly 6-2.

This will be Germany’s ninth final in eleven tournaments so they will certainly have the advantage over England when it comes to experience, as they challenge for their ninth title.

With both finalists winning all of their matches at the tournament so far, its hard to argue with the assessment that this is the ideal final. England, as the hosts, will be walking out into a packed out and passionate Wembley against eight time winners Germany. Both teams go into this full of confidence with no injury concerns and the odds favour England slightly, despite the vast difference in experience and previous triumphs.