Leicester 1-0 Man City: Kelechi Iheanacho penalty wins Community Shield to overshadow Jack Grealish debut

AFP via Getty Images
Tom Doyle7 August 2021

Leicester City beat Manchester City 1-0 to win the Community Shield thanks to a late Kelechi Iheanacho penalty at Wembley on Saturday.

The game looked to be heading to a penalty shootout, but Iheanacho won a spot-kick off Nathan Ake before slamming the ball home from 12 yards to send the thousands of Leicester fans in attendance into raptures.

The game started at a frenetic pace with chances at either end in an open first half.

Ilkay Gundogan tested Kasper Schmeichel with a good early free-kick which the Leicester goalkeeper had to turn over the bar, while Zak Steffen denied Jamie Vardy three times.

The best of Vardy's chances came just before half-time as the Foxes striker volleyed a cross at goal unmarked, but the Man City goalkeeper pulled off a superb reaction save to turn the ball onto the post.

While the Shield is ostensibly a friendly, Guardiola was booked for a furious reaction to a refereeing decision, while Rodgers kicked a water bottle down the touchline in frustration as both managers made clear this game was one they wanted to win.

The second half was a more cagey affair, though the introduction of Grealish from the bench for his City debut livened up the crowd.

But it was another substitute who proved decisive, with Iheanacho pinching the ball off Ake before being taken out by the City defender, and scoring the resulting penalty to win the game.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in