Ranti's brace in Dempo's 3-1 win over Al-Ansar

A fine first-half brace by Nigerian Ranti Martins and a goal from Edeh Chidi in the latter half helped Dempo SC to score a convincing 3-1 win over Lebanese club Al-Ansar in their opening Group A match of AFC Cup’08 played at the Nehru stadium, Fatorda here on Tuesday.

Al Ansar started the proceedings adopting attacking ploy with a packed midfield and launched flurry of attacks in the rival citadel, which pushed Dempo on the back foot.

The consistent penetration from the Lebanese outfit breached the rival defense on two or more occasion but couldn’t succeed in scoring as Dempo’s alert custodian Abhijit Mondal denied them goals.

Meanwhile, I-League champions Dempo relied on counters and waited for an opportune time for free reign, which they got in the 20th minute, as they shot ahead 1-0 through Ranti Martins.

Young Joaquim Abaranches fed a defense-splitting cross to Martins, who beat an offside trap to grab the ball inside the box and slotted a whipping drive on the far post beating Al Ansar goalkeeper Mehanna Lary.

Ranti was in the thick of the action again as he thudded his second to increase the lead of the team eleven minutes later. Ranti was at his best on Tuesday as he chested down the Nicolau Borges cross from the left flank before dodging past a defender and goalkeeper Larry Mehanna to make it 2-0 with a gentle tap.

Dempo was leading with two goals margin at the stroke of lemon-break.

On changing the ends, Al Ansar started to put pressure on the rival citadel. Even though the Lebanese outfit had large amount of ball possession, but they weren’t good in their onslaught and finishing.

Al Ansar’s missed two magnificent opportunities to score in the latter half as on one occasion Danash Hassan had only the goalkeeper to beat while Edilson saw one of his long ranging shot missing the target.

Dempo added more misery in the rival camp as they slotted one more to brought the curtains down in the 61st minute after the Nigerians duo of Chidi and Ranti combined well in a nice one-two that surprised the rival defence. Chidi Edeh unleashed a low-range shot that ended on the far corner of the goalpost.

The Lebanese team finally scored a lone consolation goal to make it 1-3 in the dying moments of the game through substitute Hassan Danach. Dempo will now travel to Oman to play Sur Club on March 18.