2026 Community Shield: What to watch for in English soccer's unofficial season opener

The 2026-27 English soccer season is set to kick off on Sunday with this year's edition of the Community Shield.

It's an annual match between the defending champions of the Premier League and the FA Cup, and it serves as the unofficial opening fixture of the English calendar.

This year, the game features two of England's best: Arsenal, who won their first Premier League trophy in 22 years last season, and Manchester City, who lifted the FA Cup despite falling to Arsenal in the league.

Here's what to watch for as the two trophy winners meet for the first time in 2026-27:

A changing of managerial roles

Arsenal's Mikel Arteta is an accomplished figure, but he's spent the majority of his career firmly in the shadow of his mentor and former boss Pep Guardiola. Winning the Premier League over Guardiola's Manchester City side, therefore, meant something special to him. 

"It’s obviously one of the biggest challenges I have faced in my career, because I know the standards," Arteta said. "They had the backroom, the stability, the quality to go and do it again."

With Guardiola stepping away from City and Italian coach Enzo Maresca taking his place, Arteta isn't the upstart challenger anymore: he's the longest-tenured coach in the Premier League and arguably the most famous and respected one, too. This Community Shield match will be his first chance to step into that role in a real way...and it will be City's first match as a team in transition since Guardiola joined the side back in 2016.

Arsenal's makeshift defense

Arsenal has one of the world's best center-back pairings in Brazil's Gabriel Magalhaes and France's William Saliba, but we won't see it in this match: the strain of the World Cup (and the 2025/26 season) sidelined Saliba with a serious back injury. He'll be unavailable for Arsenal for several months, and that means Gabriel will have to build a partnership with either Ecuador's Piero Hincapié or Spain's Cristhian Mosquera instead. This match should be an excellent touchpoint for just how well those partnerships are coming along; early signs from Arsenal's preseason point to them needing some improvement.