The Community Shield takes place between two teams who will be hoping to battle it out for the Premier League this season. English champions Arsenal take on runners-up and FA Cup winners Manchester City at Cardiff's Principality Stadium on Sunday. But do the stats suggest winning the curtain-raiser in the Welsh capital would indicate a successful season ahead?
And what of the goalscorers? Why is the Community Shield being held in Wales? Considering the current Premier League champions play in the game every season it is surprisingly rare for the Community Shield winners to go on to win the league.
Since the Premier League started in 1992-93, only eight of the 34 winners of the Charity or Community Shield have done so. Five of those happened in a six-year spell from 2005 until 2010. Manchester City, in 2019, were the last team to do so - and before that it was Alex Ferguson's Manchester United in 2011.
Only one of the past 15 winners of the Community Shield have gone on to become champions that season. Since 1992 the teams who lose the Community Shield have won more league titles that season - 10 in total, including Manchester City for three years in a row between 2021 and 2023. Last year Crystal Palace beat Liverpool and ended up finishing 15th, although they did go on to win the Conference League.
The Reds also had a disappointing domestic campaign, finishing fifth. Some 47% of the time (16/34) the upcoming season's Premier League winners had not been involved in the Community Shield - like Arsenal in 2025-26. And 53% of the time (18/34) the Shield winners have finished above the losers in the league that season.
On 10 occasions the two teams have finished as the top two in the Premier League - with four of those times being the Shield winners top and the losers as runners-up. The other question is how many Community Shields are won by the previous season's Premier League winners. The answer is 18 out of 34 times - so 53%.
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