Chelsea and Liverpool have met 10 times in the last two seasons so it is befitting that they will feature in the Community Shield prologue to the new league campaign at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on Sunday.
There was little love lost between the teams or their coaches in recent clashes of which Chelsea won five but lost the semi-finals in the Champions League and FA Cup.
That ill-feeling has already filtered into the new season with Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho writing off Liverpool's title chances and predicting a fourth-place finish at best for Raphael Benitez's side.
That will add spice to what is developing into an ever-more competitive pre-season friendly in the annual meeting between league champions and FA Cup winners.
PAST EXPLOITS
However, it is not past exploits that will be on the minds of fans in Cardiff but new faces and hopes for the future.
Liverpool, playing courtesy of an FA Cup success over West Ham United at the same stadium last May, have already kicked off their competitive season with a 2-1 Champions League third qualifying round win over Maccabi Haifa on Wednesday.
Unsurprisingly they looked rusty in the Anfield encounter but there were some encouraging signs, particularly the goalscoring debuts of Craig Bellamy and Chile's Mark Gonzalez.
Bellamy will add much-needed pace and punch to Liverpool's attack while Gonzalez and another new boy, Jermaine Pennant, also provide options that were sorely missing last season.
"It was important to show that this year we have more players who can score goals," said Benitez, whose team have been rated 6-1 second-favourites behind Chelsea for the title.
It is the first time in Premier League history that Liverpool start the season at shorter odds than Manchester United.
They are still a long way adrift of Chelsea, who are odds-on to make it a hat-trick of titles, but if Liverpool can beat them in Cardiff it might give Benitez's team the confidence to think they can challenge for the season's more important silverware.
STELLAR SQUAD
It is more than 15 years since Liverpool won the last of their record 18 league titles in 1990 and now it is big-spending Chelsea who are threatening domestic hegemony.
The London side have boosted their stellar squad with top-drawer acquisitions and while the Champions League is Mourinho's number one priority, competition for places will ensure they will again be formidable opposition domestically.
Midfielder Michael Ballack and striker Andriy Shevchenko should get their first competitive taste of the English game at home to Manchester City on Aug. 20 but Sunday will be close enough to the real thing to serve as a worthwhile introduction.
Mourinho, meanwhile, has made no secret of the fact that he sees the Millennium Stadium clash as just another step in their preparations for the real thing.
"I cannot do it any other way," he said. "I want to win it but that's about it. I will have a different approach to it than in previous years and I want to play most of my players and try different things out."
© 2024 Rediff.com -