Soleye's hatrick gives team victory in India

Ranty was later named "Man of the Match Award" for his match-winning performance and received the award from Dr.Juilo Garganta, a professor at the University of Porto and part of the touring Portuguese delegation.

 Dempo took the lead in the 10.minute when a Clifford Miranda cross was chested down by Ranty, he moved past defender Madhab Das and then send a rocket past keeper Sangram Mukherjee from the top of the box. Down so early, East Bengal coach Subhas Bhowmick reacted and brought in midfielder Sasthi Duley for defender Madhab Das.

And it seemed to work for East Bengal, as the champions got the equaliser in the 22.minute of Indian captain Baichung Bhutia. An alert Baichung intercepted a back pass from defender Raju Singh and chipped the ball over an advancing keeper Satish Kumar.

It remained one-all at the break, but soon after the restart Dempo once again went ahead with Ranty finishing off a move set-up by RC Prakash and Johnny D'Cruz playing a one-two between them.

Dempo had more of the action after once more going ahead, but it was until the 73rd minute then Ranty scored his teams third off a cross from RC Prakash to also complete his own hattrick.

Still East Bengal weren't beaten yet as the red-and.gold tried to get back into the match. The best chance came once more Baichung's way, when he tried a typical bicycle kick in the 77.minute which went wide.

It was only one minute into injury time that East Bengal pulled one back through Brazilian substitute striker Juliano Martins, but it was too late to try and salvage a draw.

 With the win today, Dempo opened-up the NFL title race, though the Goans in total missed six regular players, while East Bengal once more started with an all Indian line-up, though bringing on their foreign strikers later in the match.