Newcastle returns to Champions League, Messi will tour Indonesia

* In the late match of round 37 of the Premier League, Newcastle only needed to gain 1 more point to secure a place in the Top 4 of the Premier League, thereby officially winning a ticket to the C1 Cup next season. Indeed, coach Eddie Howe's team completed this task after a 0-0 draw with Leicester.

Newcastle now has 70 points, 4 points ahead of the 5th place team, while there is only 1 round left in the season. This will be the first time since the 2003-2004 season that Newcastle will play in Europe's most prestigious arena.

The race for the Premier League Top 4 is now just a story between MU and Liverpool. Similar to Newcastle, the Old Trafford team only needs 1 more point in the remaining 2 matches to have a place in the C1 Cup next season.

* In the qualifying round of Group F of the 2023 U20 World Cup, the first challenge Korea will face is France, one of the candidates for the championship.

Despite being the defending runner-up, the Asian representative was still rated much lower than their opponents. However, their determination to compete helped the Korean team win 2-1.

By defeating France, South Korea almost passed the group stage when their only remaining two opponents were Honduras and Gambia.

* The Guardian reported that the Court of Appeal of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) ruled that Juventus had acted to increase their investment capital in a fraudulent manner, so they decided to deduct 10 points from their Serie A rankings. Before the deduction, the "old lady" was second in Serie A with 69 points. However, after receiving the penalty, coach Max Allegri and his team fell to 7th place, a position that does not have a place in the C1 Cup next season.

In January 2023, FIGC decided to deduct 15 points from Juventus for financial violations, but the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) asked Serie A to return the 15 points to Juventus at the end of April.

However, Juventus is said to have difficulty successfully appealing the latest penalty, meaning they are at risk of not being able to participate in the Champions League next season.

* In round 36 of Serie A, AS Roma struggled to hold Salernitana to a 2-2 draw. This is the 6th consecutive match in Serie A that coach Jose Mourinho and his team have not known victory. Perhaps AS Roma is now only focusing on the final of the C2 Cup against Sevilla.

On the rankings, because Juventus was deducted 10 points and dropped to 7th place, AS Roma rose to 6th place with a 4-point gap compared to the 4th place team AC Milan, while there are 2 rounds left in the season.

* According to The Jakarta Post, the Argentine team will travel to Indonesia for a friendly match on June 19. Four days before that, Messi and his teammates will compete with the Australian team in Beijing (China).

Indonesian media called this a "historic match" for the country's football, when for the first time Indonesian players faced the world's number 1 team (reigning World Cup champion, number 1 in FIFA rankings).

The Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) is said to have spent no less than $5 million to invite Messi and the Argentine national team to Jakarta this summer. The Indonesia-Argentina match is expected to be held at the 80,000-seat Bung Karno Stadium. Surely the “heat” from Messi and his teammates will cause ticket demand to increase to a record level.

* The National News reported that Neymar is expected to leave PSG next summer and is currently receiving great attention from many teams in the transfer market, including Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal, to fulfill his ambition of "becoming a dragon".

Besides, there is also information that MU will recruit Neymar if the acquisition of this club by Qatari tycoon Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al Thani is successful.

* Sky News reported that on May 22, Real Madrid said it had filed a complaint with the Spanish prosecutor's office regarding the incident in which striker Vinicius was racially abused during the match against Valencia at Mestalla Stadium on May 21. Accordingly, Vinicius was subjected to racist chants by some Valencia fans.

In addition, the Spanish Footballers' Association (AFE) and the Movement Against Intolerance (MCI) also submitted separate petitions to the Spanish prosecutor's office on May 22 regarding the above incident.

The "Today's Football Results" section of the People's Army Newspaper sends readers the latest football results of the matches that took place last night and early this morning.

TRAN ANH (synthesis)

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