Manchester City end five-year wait for Community Shield glory in narrow United battle

Manchester City finally broke its Community Shield curse , defeating Manchester United in a penalty shootout to secure the season's first soccer silverware.

United believed it had clinched the win in the 82nd minute when substitute Alejandro Garnacho coolly slotted a goal past Ederson, marking another score against City at Wembley. Erik ten Hag's players had the majority of opportunities, with Marcus Rashford and Scott McTominay both missing glorious chances before Garnacho's breakthrough.

However, City refused to lose its fourth consecutive Community Shield match without a fight. Bernardo Silva emerged with a late header, leading to the first-ever Manchester Derby penalty shootout. Despite Bernardo's initial miss in the shootout giving United hope, Jadon Sancho missed his own penalty and Jonny Evans shot over the bar, allowing Manuel Akanji to secure the victory for City.

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It was a big moment for Akanji, who missed a penalty in Switzerland's Euro 2024 shootout defeat to England earlier this summer. "I let the others shoot first because obviously when you miss a penalty, you don't go into the next one with that much confidence," he admitted to ITV at full-time.

"I told Ederson I would shoot it down the middle in training so I did it and it went in. It wasn't easy. We played well, United got a bit better before it went to 1-0. Then it was a great cross from Oscar (Bobb) and Bernardo's header.

"Ederson is probably the best penalty taker in our team, Erling (Haaland) as well. When Ederson takes the penalty I know it is a goal."

The Community Shield is English soccer's Super Cup and takes place the weekend before the new Premier League campaign starts. The previous season's Premier League champion and FA Cup winner compete in the Community Shield. If the same team wins both of those trophies - doing the 'double' - then the Premier League runner-up is invited to play.

City won the Community Shield in 2018 and 2019. The team failed to win the Premier League or FA Cup in 2020, thus missing that year's Community Shield, but has played in every edition since then after winning four consecutive Premier League titles.

Pep Guardiola's players have struggled in the Community Shield in recent years. They were beaten by Leicester in 2021, by Liverpool in 2022, and by Arsenal last year. Akanji was delighted to finally get over the line on Saturday to win his first Community Shield.

He added: "It is a great start to the season, I haven't won the Community Shield yet so I'm really happy that I got this trophy as well and we look forward to hopefully win the next one soon."

City teammate Ruben Dias said: "Obviously it feels great to start the season winning. We have lost here in the last three years.

"We're happy to start the season in the way we have and obviously there's a lot to come. It's another trophy and we're always happy to collect trophies. We've just had a long season and we still don't have a full squad back but it is very good for us to start this way."