In this weekend preview we summarise the best five games to follow on your match feed. And make a couple of suggestions for matches that you may otherwise miss.
🛡 Community Shield: Manchester City vs. Arsenal
We’re one weekend away from the return of the Premier League, and if you’ve been following English football for anything longer than a year, you’ll know that this Sunday – that means we get the Community Shield game, the traditional season opener, played at Wembley Stadium.
Unusually, with Manchester City winning both the League and FA Cup last season, that means this year’s opposition is provided by Arsenal, who were runners-up in the title race. Look away now if you don’t want a reminder of how the 2022/23 campaign ended.
We won’t delve too much further in to events at the tail end of last season, but needless to say, this game will act as an early indicator in to how each team is shaping up in response to that – City, looking to follow up their historic treble, and Arsenal building on all their improvements, with Mikel Arteta so active in the transfer market.
In pre-season, City have toured Asia, beating J-League champions Yokohama F. Marinos and Bayern München, but then losing to Atlético Madrid. Arsenal, meanwhile, have been jet-setting – they drew with Nürnberg in Germany before heading to the United States, where they lost to Manchester United, but beat Barcelona, and a MLS All-Stars team managed by Wayne Rooney. Most recently, they won their own Emirates Cup match, against Monaco, via a penalty shoot-out. Which was perhaps good practice for this weekend.
For a more in-depth look at this meeting between last season’s title protagonists, you can read a full preview – here.
🏴 EFL Championship: Leicester City vs. Coventry City
Further down the English football pyramid, this weekend is cause for celebration, as all three of the EFL divisions, plus various lower leagues, all get their season underway. The action starts in the Championship, with Friday night’s meeting between Sheffield Wednesday and recently relegated Southampton. But we thought we’d focus on the game involving another of the relegated sides – Leicester City, who face fellow East Midlanders, Coventry City on Sunday, the side who lost out to Luton Town in the play-off final at the end of last season.
Leicester City, now under the management of Enzo Maresca and with a new look squad, will be looking to start strong. Maresca might be a relative rookie in this front-line role (at this level) but Leicester have maintained a solid core and in signing the likes of Conor Coady, Hamza Choudhury, and young Danish keeper, Mads Hermansen, they’ve bought talent that should succeed in England’s notoriously difficult second tier.
Coventry will also look a little different this season having sold star striker Viktor Gyökeres to Sporting, in Portugal, but coach Mark Robins appears to have used that money wisely and the club have brought in a host of new players. The aim must surely be to match last season’s top six finish.
🏴 EFL League Two: Wrexham vs. MK Dons
In the fourth tier of English football, there’s the long awaited return of a Welsh club – Wrexham, who play their first league game in 15 years when they meet MK Dons on Saturday. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of those years that Wrexham have spent in non-league, you’ll know all about their promotion story, under the Hollywood ownership of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.
The two have invested so much, along with the community, in this return to the EFL, that Saturday’s game will no doubt be a massive celebration for all involved. And with a side easily strong enough to compete in League Two, playing a side recently relegated to this level, we should have a decent game on our hands as well.
Sadly, we won’t get to watch the home side’s star man, with Paul Mullin having suffered a punctured lung in the recent pre-season game played against Manchester United in the States.
🏴 Scottish Premiership: Celtic vs. Ross County
Not to be outdone – the new league season also gets underway in Scotland. The country has already seen competitive football in the group stages of the League Cup and the various trials and tribulations faced by Hibs in the Europa Conference League. But this weekend, all Scottish sides will play league fixtures.
For two-time defending champions, Celtic, that comes in the guise of a home game against Ross County. Famously, Celtic have lost their title-winning coach, Ange Postecoglou, to Spurs but they do, of course, welcome back Brendan Rodgers for a second spell at the club. Fans will be hoping that their domestic dominance is maintained under the man who won seven out of a possible seven trophies during his first stint in Glasgow.
Ross County only clung on to their top flight status with an aggregate victory over Partick Thistle in June’s relegation/promotion play-off but they have started the new season reasonably well. They’ve qualified for the knockout stages of the League Cup having topped their group, winning three out of four games, and only losing the fourth on penalties, following a 3-3 draw with Kelty Hearts.
Elsewhere in the SPFL, Rangers begin their campaign with a trip to the newly promoted Kilmarnock.
🏆 Women’s World Cup: Sweden vs. United States
After Friday’s rest day, the Round of 16 at the Women’s World Cup kicks off on Saturday. And while there’s plenty of intrigue elsewhere (Switzerland vs. Spain, Japan vs. Norway), we’ve picked out Sunday’s game between the USWNT and unbeaten Sweden.
This is something of a surprise match-up, with the US supposed to have walked through Group E. Indeed, it looked like it was going that way when two goals from Sophia Smith inspired them to a 3-0 win over Vietnam in their opening game. Since then, the two-time defending champions have drawn with Netherlands (no disgrace) and Portugal (more surprising), to go through as group runners-up with five points and only four goals scored.
Sweden, on the other hand, have looked strong. And they easily won Group G as one of only three nations (along with Japan and England) to win all three of their fixtures. South Africa posed them more than a few problems in their opener – they needed a last minute winner from Amanda Ilestedt in that one, but since then, they’ve been ruthless – beating Italy 5-0 and Argentina 2-0.
This clash, between the sides ranked number one and number three in the world should be a showstopper.
Plus two hidden gems from a little deeper in your match feed…
This month, along with our friends at Copa90, we’ve supporting photographer Danny Last on The Tour: An interrail trip deep in to European fan culture. Danny’s journey started this week as he took in numerous games in Denmark and Sweden, and was present for FC København’s Champions League barnstormer against Breiðablik on Wednesday night.
Therefore, we’re asking you to follow Danny, and the clubs he visits via our social channels, but also by picking out a couple of games from his itinerary for this column, this weekend.
First up, on Friday night, he’ll be in Rotterdam for the Dutch Super Cup, or Johan Cruijff Shield between Eredivisie Champions Feyenoord, and the current KNVB Cup holders, PSV Eindhoven.
And on Sunday, he’ll be at the big Belgian Pro League clash between sleeping giants Anderlecht and reigning champions Royal Antwerp. It’s week two of the new season here and Antwerp’s title defence started with a 1-0 win over Cercle Brugge while Anderlecht went down 2-0 to Union St. Gilliose in the opening round.
If you want to follow any of the games mentioned above, click on the relevant link and tap the bell icon to receive all the key match updates.
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Cover Image from IMAGO