CARDIFF — A Peter Crouch header 10 minutes from time gave FA Cup winners Liverpool a 2-1 win over lackluster Premier League champions Chelsea in the Community Shield at the Millennium Stadium yesterday.
The tall England striker’s goal deservedly secured the Shield outright for the 10th time — with five more shared — for Liverpool, who had gone ahead in the ninth minute with a 25 meter John-Arne Riise shot and looked far more together than the Londoners.
The one bright spot for Chelsea was a confident performance by £30 million ($56.9 million) striker Andriy Shevchenko, who equalized in the 43rd minute with a typically predatory goal and looked comfortably at home in his new environment after his close-season move from AC Milan.
It was not such an auspicious start for Chelsea’s other big-name arrival, however, as Germany captain Michael Ballack earned the first booking of the game and limped off with a hip problem midway through the first half.
Yesterday’s game, the prelude the next weekend’s start of the Premier League season, failed to capture the imagination of the Chelsea fans and there were swathes of empty seats as only 56,275 filed into the 74,000 capacity stadium.
The absentees seemed to have made a wise choice as Liverpool, with last week’s Champions League qualifier against Maccabi Haifa already under their belts, unsurprisingly looked the more settled side.
They blasted into the lead when left back Riise collected the ball inside his own penalty area, advanced unopposed down the right deep into Chelsea territory before unleashing a powerful low shot that somehow found a way past goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini, who appeared to have it covered.
Mohamed Sissoko outshone Ballack in midfield as Liverpool dominated the first half but they ended it level after Frank Lampard chipped an inch-perfect 30-meter pass for Shevchenko to chest the ball down on the run before expertly steering it beyond Jose Reina.
Shevchenko looked sharper than he did during the World Cup for Ukraine when he struggled for fitness after a knee injury but few of his new teammates could claim the same.
Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho lamented the fact that so few of his squad were match-fit and did his best to sharpen up as many as possible with regular substitutions. With Benitez also using his full allocation of five changes, the second half was never able to settle into any rhythm.
However, one of those substitutes was Liverpool’s livewire forward Bellamy and he created the winner when he skipped down the left wing and crossed for Crouch, inexplicably left unmarked in front of goal.
