And they were uniformly pathetic.

Today’s results:

Argentina 1-0 Belgium

Netherlands 0(4)-0(3) Costa Rica

In the first game Belgium triple-teamed Lionel Messi which gave the rest of the Argentine offense the opportunity to mostly miss the goal. Fortunately Higuain managed to hit it at 8 minutes in so the game was over after 90 minutes.

Messi is a world class player, but you can’t use three defenders to mark him without opening up space for his team.

The second game was worse. The Netherlands controlled the ball two-thirds of the time, but simply couldn’t find the net. This does not bode well for the Orange against the White & Sky-Blue of Argentina.

The final will be between the teams that figure out that the purpose of the game is to put the ball into the net.

The Tour de France started today and will continue until the July 27^th finish in Paris. This year the most iconic event in French cycling chose to begin with the Grand Depart in … Leeds … Yorkshire … England. The Jerseys after the first stage of competition were presented by … Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge with Princes William and Harry on the podium.

Yes, Le Tour is really starting in the Yorkshire Dales. Great Britain really supports cycling, and the Tour is a professional sports event with sponsors who want reach as many potential customers as possible.

As always, here are the Tour basics if you want to follow along, and no, I don’t think the French national team crashed out of the World Cup so they could watch the race, even if it does ease a major potential conflict for French media corporations.

The cartoon characters from my header are wearing the various colored jerseys that indicate the leader in the different classifications in the race.

The Maillot Jaune, Yellow Jersey is worn by the rider with the lowest time overall in the race. The eventual winner of the race may never have come in first in any stage, but was near the lead throughout the race and achieved the lowest time over the entire course of the event. The winner is normally an “all-arounder”, someone who is very good at the sprints and the hill climbing, even if they aren’t the best. Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, and Fabian Cancellara are “all-arounders”, showing up on the lists of the sprinters and the climbers, while staying in the top ten for overall time.

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Position: 45.0N 65.5W [10AM CDT 1500 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [035°] near 24 mph [39 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Wind Gusts: 75 mph [120 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 160 miles [260 km].
Minimum central pressure: 983 mb.

Currently about 95 miles [ 155 km] West-Northwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for New Brunswick from the US border to Grand-anse; Nova Scotia; Cape Breton Island; and Prince Edward Island.

This is the final NHC advisory. The Canadian Hurricane Centre continues issuing advisories.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]