Madrid  - A Saturday night of surprises in Spain saw defeats for Real Madrid and Valencia.

Real crashed 1-0 in Valladolid, a defeat which could call for the sacking of embattled coach Bernd Schuster.

Later on Saturday, Valencia went down 3-2 in Mestalla to Sporting Gijon, their second successive home defeat.

These results leave Real and Valencia in joint third place, together on 23 points.

Levi, Finland - Lindsey Vonn of the United States clinched her maiden World Cup slalom in the first women's slalom of the alpine ski World Cup season in the Finnish resort of Levi on Saturday.

Vonn, last season's overall winner and downhill champion, almost crashed out on the second leg but recovered to finish 0.40 seconds ahead of Maria Pietilae-Holmer of Sweden.

It was the 14th World Cup win for 24-year-old Vonn but the first in the slalom discipline for the downhill specialist.

Last season's slalom champion Maria Riesch of Germany edged Austria's Nicole Hosp for third place.

London, Nov.

Los Angeles  - The Detroit Pistons made sure the Los Angeles Lakers would not go undefeated this season.

Rasheed Wallace had 25 points with 13 rebounds, and Allen Iverson also scored 25 as the Pistons snapped the Lakers' seven-game winning streak, with a convincing
106-95 road victory on Friday night.

Iverson didn't put much stock in sending the Lakers to their first loss of the season.

Sydney, Nov. 15 : Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting, team coach Tim Nielsen and the cricket selectors ignored the basics of the game, and that is why they lost the series to India in India two nil, claims former player and noted commentator Peter Roebuck.

Responding to Ponting’s criticism of his write-ups during the series, Roebuck said that Ponting’s leadership was questionable and his field settings were contrived, but added that the pitches were also partly to blame for the final result.

Sydney, Nov. 15 : The recently concluded four-Test series between India and Australia, which India won two nil, would have been described by Australian cricketing legend Sir Donald Bradman as “Bloody Good Test Cricket”.