Tour de France in numbers

CYCLING – On 4 July, the Tour de France will start in Utrecht. Excluding France, Netherlands are the country with most Tour starts – six, including 2015. The following are various stats about the Tour de France and its participants this year.

ANALYSE THIS: Dutch pairs favourites at World Beach Volleyball Championships

BEACH VOLLEYBALL – The favourites and second favourites for the men’s title at the World Beach Volleyball Championships in the Netherlands are both performing before a home crowd.

ANALYSE THIS: Germany slight favourites at FIFA Women’s World Cup

FOOTBALL – Germany are the favourites for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, but only just, according to a new analysis from Infostrada Sports. The United States are second favourites and there is nearly 50% chance of the winners being one or the other of these two teams. They are, however, most likely to meet each other at the semi-final stage of the competition.

INFOGRAPHIC: Luciana Aymar is chasing a record sixth victory

HOCKEY – Argentina’s star player Luciana Aymar is chasing a record sixth victory in the Champions Trophy. Argentina are also aiming for their sixth, which would equal all-time record holders Netherlands and Australia.

THE WAVE: Netherlands – Latvia

FOOTBALL – Netherlands defeated Latvia 6-0 in their Euro qualifier on Sunday. The wave showed the Dutch (Orange) kept the foot on the pedal almost the entire match. Latvia (Blue) only showed some action around the 75th minute when they had a shot on goal and a shot wide.

ANALYSE THIS: Germany lose number one spot, Dutch in freefall

FOOTBALL – Now that the dust has settled on the week’s international matches in Europe, a glance at the Infostrada Sports’ National Team Ranking reveals a few major changes since the World Cup  including Germany’s loss of the top spot to Argentina after losing at home to their World Cup final opponents and the Dutch national team dropping from third to ninth after two defeats. There is now just one European team, Germany, in the top five as Spain have dropped a place.

REVIEW: Dutch national team lose qualifying opener

FOOTBALL – The Dutch national football team lost their opening match in the European Championship qualification against Czech Republic. Since 1992, the Dutch team had been undefeated in their openers in qualifying (ECh or WC). In that year Netherlands lost 2-1 against Norway to open their 1994 World Cup qualifying campaign.

ANALYSE THIS: Overwhelming favourites in Groups A to D

FOOTBALL: Euro 2016 qualification begins this weekend and two of the top seeded teams in the draw, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy, are not the favourites to win their groups according to the Infostrada Sports’ National Team Ranking. Six of the nine groups have an overwhelming favourite to be group winner and only one of the groups looks truly competitive at this stage. We begin our assessment of the groups by looking at A to D.

FIVE FAST FACTS: Review – Brazil v Netherlands 0-3

FOOTBALL – We have Five Facts on tonight’s Brazil v Netherlands match at the World Cup.

ANALYSE THIS: Wave – Brazil v Netherlands

FOOTBALL – Brazil’s only really good period of the match was the last 15 minutes of the first half. Otherwise, the Dutch team had the match under control.