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UM, THAT WILL SHOW ‘EM?

There are at least 6,001 days in the year. Days occur at a rate of approximately 16.5 days a day. This is confusing, sure, but it’s the world we live in. Get over it. This is based on the boast from daysoftheyear.com that they list “over 6,000” commemorative days, and that this number, whatever it is, has just swollen by one with the declaration that Argentina is henceforth to celebrate National Football Teams Day on 15 July every year, that being the date on which their men’s team beat England in the recent Geopolitics World Cup semi-finals.

Oh to be involved in the Argentinian FA, an organisation seemingly so bereft of actual work to do that it dedicated time at Wednesday’s executive committee meeting to discussing this meaningless, jingoistic token. Claudio Tapia, the AFA’s scandal-tarnished president, announced the new day while also pledging to send the hotel bedsheet daubed with the words “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, as controversially paraded after the win over England, to the Centro de Veteranos de Guerra Malvinas Argentinas, a war museum in Tierra del Fuego, where it will be added to the permanent exhibit. He proceeded to release “a comprehensive report detailing the achievements of all national teams during his administration”, a list that includes various runners-up finishes in obscure beach football tournaments, their victorious campaign at the 2019 Granatkin, a Russian invitational Under-18 event at which the Russians had edged out their own B team on penalties in the semi-finals; and a four-team futsal shindig in Indonesia at which they overcame the hosts, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Yeah, sure, and a World Cup and a Copa América or two.

Even ignoring the obscure gongs, Argentina has one of the most successful teams in international football, and only Brazil and Germany can better their record of winning 54 games at the men’s World Cup – way ahead of England’s 38, for the record – from which they have collected three titles, while they’ve won the Copa América 16 times and snaffled a couple of Olympic golds. Yet for all this glory their obsession is the English, and rather than honouring any of those finals the one comparable event in their calendar is Argentine Footballers’ Day, celebrated each year on 22 June, the anniversary of a cheaty handball goal helping to beat England in 1986. Other than a dramatic roll of the eyes, the news should be met with acknowledgement that there are more than enough days already. Serious implications arise from the number that now exist. For a start, to mark them all, new editions of Football Daily should really be published approximately once every hour and 28 minutes. Such a timetable would potentially lead to the discovery of a qualitative boundary beyond which even our ever-forgiving reader would not step.

The declaration of days really seems to have something of the Wild West (National Day of the Cowboy: 25 July) about it. National Football Teams Day is at a minimum the 20th day on 15 July alone. One of those is National Give Something Away Day, an actual thing which was marked this year by, for example, Heart FM and its associated stations giving someone a £100 Amazon voucher, and by Acton Care Centre gathering a “small group” to seize upon “a lovely opportunity to come together and think about how even the smallest act of kindness can make a difference to someone else”. And all this happened because in 2015 it was arbitrarily declared by a random and really quite obscure woman in California, a person whose day-creation credentials are completely unclear. This is a truly bizarre (National Absurdity Day: 20 November) situation. Perhaps Argentina actually intend to tap into the Give Something Away Day spirit, in which case we can imagine the United Kingdom simply replying: forget it, you’re not having them.

DAVID OWORI, RIP

Horrific news from Uganda, where the football community is in mourning after the death of a player who was fatally injured during a robbery in the capital, Kampala. David Owori, who captained Sports Club Villa and represented the national team, was attacked after resisting an attempt to steal his phone and other belongings. The Federation ​of Uganda Football Associations said: “David was not just a footballer. He was ​both a leader and an inspiration to a generation. We have lost a son, a leader and a star. His light on and off the pitch will never be forgotten.”

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

[Snip – Football Daily Lawyers].

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day goes to … Rollover. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Here we go. Here we go. Firstly, Clevedon, [effing] absolute joke. Money, money, money and can’t do [eff] all because they’re a bunch of mugs. So there’s that one out the window, we’ll get that one out the way first. They’re telling everyone how they’re going to walk this league, bash everybody. ‘We’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do that.’ Yep, alright, well they haven’t done that tonight to Bridgy. No man of the match tonight for Bridgy, but here’s £1,000; Mark, the captain, will take the £1,000. That’s for the man of the match, that’s for the whole team towards the end of the season” – Ian Davis, Bridgwater United’s less-than-reserved owner, unloads on Clevedon Town after his team’s 2-1 win there took them top of the Western League Premier Division.

AWAY THE LADS

Matthias Jaissle made all the right noises when his appointment as Newcastle’s new head coach was finally rubber-stamped. “The ambition of the club, the vision for the future and the opportunity ahead made this an incredibly compelling place to be,” parped the German, carefully sidestepping the issue that some of Newcastle’s biggest recent players – including Anthony Gordon, captain Bruno Guimarães and Sandro Tonali – have respectively deemed Barcelona, Arsenal and relegation strugglers Tottenham Hotspur more compelling places than St James’ Park to be this coming season. Newcastle will pocket about £230m from those three sales, although how much of that is reinvested into their transfer budget remains to be seen. “My teams are built on togetherness, hard work and a passion to improve every single day,” Jaissle continued, which suggests he might be more preoccupied with wringing what he can out of the remaining squad on the training pitch than spending big in the transfer market. Good luck, Matthias!

NEWS, BITS AND BOBS

Fatemeh Pasandideh and Atefeh Ramezanisadeh, members of the Iran national team who sought asylum after competing in Australia, have been granted citizenship. “Australia has given me the opportunity to build my life and my future, and I feel, more than ever, that I belong here,” said Ramezanisadeh.

Uefa is planning to commission an independent valuation of Fifa’s World Cup sale plans amid concerns that Gianni Infantino agreed to sell the tournament’s future profits to a private equity firm at below the market rate. And if that’s not enough, it says a threatened boycott remains in place after Fifa declared that its under-fire president still had its full support. “Yesterday’s announcement that some people employed by the Fifa president (and whose careers depend on his favour) agree with him changes nothing,” miaowed Uefa.

It’s also emerged that Infantino held talks about rebranding the €uropean $uper £eague as the “Fifa Super League”. Of course.

Real Madrid have agreed a club-record fee of €140m with Leipzig for teenager Yan Diomande and the Spaniards are confident that an improved deal they’re waving in front of Vinícius Júnior will ward off interest from Arsenal.

Meanwhile, the Gunners are said to have the funk on after losing 3-1 to Real Betis in a pre-season friendly. “Very upset, given a hard time. They are fuming, but this ​is good. That’s what ‌we need,” sniffed Mikel Arteta. “Sometimes it’s good to create even more fire in the belly.”

Barcelona are weighing up whether to join Real Madrid in a Spanish superpower tug of war for Manchester City’s Rodri.

Mohamed Salah, what first attracted you to wealthy Turkish outfit Trabzonspor? The Egypt forward will trouser €17m each season, plus a 20% share from products sold ‌under his name and conditional bonuses.

And Uruguay’s permanent successor to Marcelo Bielsa is none other than Diego Forlán. Here’s hoping it doesn’t impinge on his tennis career.

STILL WANT MORE?

“It is more than a decade since the late Lord Triesman, the former FA chair, described Fifa as a ‘mafia family’, and nothing about that description feels less true today.” Jonathan Liew wonders why it’s taken the game so long to rebel against Gianni Infantino. And Paul MacInnes looks at what can be done to reform Fifa.

Alessia Russo gets her chat on with Suzanne Wrack about becoming an honorary “childhood Gooner”, her foundation’s grassroots ambitions and pushing for that elusive WSL title with Arsenal.

From Deportivo La Coruña to Wisla Krakow, Niall McVeigh looks at the promoted sides worth watching in Europe’s top flights this season.

Konsa to Arsenal? Núñez to team up with Salah at Trabzonspor? The Rumour Mill sifts through the latest transfer blether.

Talking of Salah, check out this extract from Melissa Reddy’s book on the Egypt superstar, on the striker’s formative years.

And the team over at Opta have picked out one potential breakout star for each Premier League club this season.

MEMORY LANE

With the transfer window in full swing, here’s a look back to August 2015 and Ángel Di María undergoing his medical – with some informative props at a hospital in Doha – before completing a switch to PSG from Manchester United. “Things did not turn out well for me at United for many reasons but that is the past,” he later sighed. “This is not only my decision. They also wanted to sell me. It is a shared decision between the three parties, if we include PSG.”

BIG PARK LOOP IT IS, THEN