Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was pleased his side's performance despite losing the Community Shield to Manchester City on penalties.
Former Reds winger Raheem Sterling opened the scoring for City in the first half, before Joel Matip grabbed an equaliser on the 77th minute mark.
Gabriel Jesus scored the winning spot-kick to make it 5-4 for City after Claudio Bravo denied Reds midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum.
Despite the loss, Klopp saw plenty of encouraging signs heading into Friday's Premier League opener against Norwich City.
He told the club's website: "Absolutely. I'm completely happy about the full performance. I said before the game, if you want to be prepared for Man City you have to make a pre-season game against Man City; no team plays like them.
"You saw that in a few moments in the first half, when they can do what they do. We struggled a little bit positioning-wise but that's normal. The biggest threat was pretty much the long balls from Bravo in behind, where our last line was not a line.
"The first two balls, I think. The third ball was dangerous as well with Sane then on the other side. That makes it difficult but that's how they stretched our formation and then when you expect these balls, they play it in between, in the half-spaces, that's pretty tricky. We could have had a bit better positioning, we changed that for the second half, which helped us a lot.
Klopp continued: "The second half is about will and all that stuff. That's another thing in pre-season: you fill your body with all this physical information but you are not used to it after four or five weeks that you really can go over that point.
"We went over that point today, then nobody felt tired anymore and they could really go. I liked that a lot. Football-wise, the second half was just really, really good, the best way you can play against City.
"They are in the early stages as well, they will be in a different shape in a couple of weeks, for sure. But having this amount of chances we had today is a very good sign for us, absolutely. I liked the game a lot. I don't like the result but I liked the game a lot, so for us it was very, very important."
