There was football this weekend here ???

I must have completely missed that

Why not? Nothing in football as important as the controverse Ajax - Rest of the Netherlands!

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Were the vikings all the way down to Suriname??? Wow, that's impressive!

I don't think your guys kicked our guys out though - they probably didn't like the weather and stopped going there...

On the language similarities I suppose there are many small reasons, like both being germanic languages and then we've exchanged population a bit too, in the 15-1600 there were many swedes & norwegians working in Holland and in the 1600s during the many wars we imported a lot of Vallonian cannon makers. 

Btw, it seems we still import dutch farmers. In the news a couiple of months ago there was a story about dutchies selling their homes and moving to Värmland (a 'landscape' in mid Sweden by the Norwegian border) we're they've bought farms. So far, there's already about 500 dutch farmers in Värmland alone. I suppose it must be nice to move from one of the most crowded countries in Europe to one of the least crowded in the world.

PS

I still thinks it's a bit unlogical (or 'illogical' before some knowitall corrects me ) not to pronunce a letter as it's written. G can be sh/j/g in swedish so you're not alone. 

The russian kh is a spanish j so why not add a dutch g ?!

But if this sound really is so important, why hasn't it gotten a letter of its own???

"But a further similarity may be the unlogical pronunciation of some letters. In dutch g=ch and v=f"

I do not quite understand, why this is unlogical. On the g-ch matter:
As far as I know, Dutch is the only European language with the hard g, pronounced as if you scrape your throat. The ch in most European languages is pronounced as sj or tsj. Maybe Smyslov_Fan can tell me, if Khalifman is pronounced the same way; I am not sure.
The confusing part is the ch. In Dutch the prononciation of foreign words like chauffeur remains the same as in the original language. Original Dutch spelling would be sjofeur. When the ch follows the s though, it is like the hard g again: school, Scheveningen. An exception is the word chemie, it is one of the very few words with the ch at the beginning still pronounced with the hard g.
Beneath the three rivers and in Belgium hardly no one uses the hard g. I do not know any equivalent of the way Southern Dutchmen and Belgian pronounce the g.
All original Dutch words containing the g are pronounced this way. Call it uncommon, but it is not unlogical.

Theoretically there is a difference between the v and the f. The v is soft - like the English word vacant - while the f is hard - like the English word fly. Laziness has faded away the difference.

The way we use the letter c is very unlogical though: sometimes a s, sometimes a k. What's more: there is no difference between ou and au - both are pronounced like the English cow (kau or kou, it is exactly the same).

Taljechin, to comfort you: you understand about as much of spoken Dutch as I do of spoken Swedish!  Maybe it is because my ancestors kicked yours out of my beloved country some 1200 years ago?

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Well, ø is the danish version of ö. Strangely, swedish & dutch are close in writing but when hearing dutch I don't understand it more than icelandic i.e. not at all!   

But a further similarity may be the unlogical pronunciation of some letters. In dutch g=ch and v=f while we have less general rules, e.g: Ljungberg ['ju:ngberj] Källström [chaelstreum] g is g unless it ends a word or is followed by certain vowels, for example 'ge' then it's a 'j' and k is also either k or ch/sh depending on the following vowel...

Btw, I got to hand it to S_F, including Wigan was impressive (though Chelsea was probably the only team needed really...), I hadn't heard about them before this season. However, their 2nd place might not be totally inexplicable as I've recently learned they have a swedish forward...

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We'll see, I have seen this before with Ajax. The year we won the championship and the CL didnt start that well either.
I disagree about the money. In a normal competition money will tell due to the statistics. In the "play-offs" the effect is much less, due to coincedence being an important factor. Last year neither Chel$ki or Real we-buy-every-star-we-can Madrid reached the final. I doubt they will this year. My personal feeling is it will be either of the Milans vs Lyons. I am just thinking (more hoping) there will be a dutch team in the final. They're certainly not favourites, but either team could do it.

@Taljechin. Indeed very similar, except for the weird letters you have like ä, å and ö. I missed the ø though

EPL fans watch out!

Liverpool has just won two in a row, beating Aston Villa away!  Go Reds!

The CL big picture hasn't changed much since last year.  In order to win, you will have to go through some great Spanish teams, English, teams, or a German/Italian team.  The Dutch entries are entertaining, but when PSV couldn't beat AC Milan in the semis last year, I was slightly disappointed.  Ok, only slightly, since my Kop made it to the final and weren't going to be denied!

So, keep chatting all you like about Ajax and PSV.  They may win a knock-out game or two between them, but watch out for the Limeys and the Spanish teams!