Vasco shock F C Kochin

Debutants Vasco, Goa, dished out fast and attacking soccer to edge past F C Kochin by a solitary first half goal and collect full points from their National Football League encounter, at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, in Kochi, on Thursday.

The all-important goal for Vasco was scored by their star Uzbekistan striker Awazbek Khoshimov, in the 35th minute of the first half.

In another match, at Thiruvanathapuram, Churchill Brothers got the better of State Bank of Travancore 3-2.

Rocky Barretto (14th), Igor Shvrin (59th) and Francis Silveira scored for the Goa outfit while C V Sunny (16th) and T Asif Shaeer got the goals for the bankmen.

The Vasco- FC Kochin match was a keen affair. Vasco, who dominated the proceedings, thrilled the crowd with their neat, short passes and could have won the match by a bigger margin but for poor marksmanship by their strikers.

Their all-important goal resulted following a throw-in by Santano Clark. Khoshimov trapped the ball and banged to the left of goalkeeper Shibu Shanmugham.

This was Kochin's second consecutive defeat in the tournament following their 1-3 loss to ITI, Bangalore.

F C Kochin, who had held Vasco to a 1-1 draw in their away match earlier, are stuck on 29 points from 15 matches while Vasco improved their points tally to 23 from 15 matches.