Liverpool beat Sunderland 4-2 in a pre-season friendly in Nashville, Tennessee, on 25 July 2026 — Andoni Iraola's first match in charge of the club (Liverpool FC).

The scoreline sounds comfortable. It was anything but. Sunderland led 2-1 before Liverpool scored three times to take the game away from them, in front of a crowd of 24,897 that leaned heavily red (BBC Sport).

Kieran Morrison, one of Liverpool's young prospects, opened the scoring with a left-footed finish, cutting in from the right after Harvey Elliott's assist. Then things unravelled. Enzo Le Fee levelled for Sunderland, and Timur Tutierov put the Championship side 2-1 up. For a few minutes, the Premier League club looked genuinely rattled.

Dominik Szoboszlai settled them down with a strike from outside the box to make it 2-2. Federico Chiesa, assisted by Calvin Ramsay, put Liverpool back in front. Lewis Koumas added a fourth to put the result beyond doubt (BBC Sport).

Giorgi Mamardashvili, the Georgian goalkeeper signed from Valencia, started between the posts for Liverpool (BBC Sport). Sixteen-year-old Josh Abe came on as a second-half substitute to make his first senior appearance.

Joe Gomez's evening lasted just eight minutes. He suffered a shoulder injury early in the match and had to come off — the one sour note in an otherwise encouraging night (Liverpool.com). Iraola later described it as "probably the worst news" from the win (Liverpool FC).

For the new head coach, the result offered a foundation rather than a finished product. "It will give us a good starting point to improve things," Iraola said of the performance (Liverpool FC). He had already flagged, days earlier, that the squad has "obvious" gaps to address in the transfer market (Reuters).

Before kickoff, the occasion paused to pay respects to Kevin Keegan, the former Liverpool and England forward, as part of the evening's events in Nashville (Liverpool FC).

Both sides continue their American pre-season tours. Liverpool face Wrexham in New York on Thursday at 00:30 BST. Sunderland head across the river to the Sports Illustrated Stadium in New Jersey to play Leeds United (BBC Sport).

Pre-season friendlies are about fitness and experimentation, not points. But when a 16-year-old debuts, a new manager gets his first win, and a defender leaves injured inside ten minutes, the result still tells you something. For Liverpool, the signs are encouraging. The work is far from done.