Vivek Agnihotri's 'Goal' has made a smashing start in Dubai. This John Abraham-Bipasha Basu-Arshad Warsi-Boman Irani film has taken an excellent opening in the city.

Informs a source from UTV, "First day of 'Goal' is even better than that of 'Rang De Basanti'. While 'Rang De Basanti' with Aamir Khan in the lead had made 160000 Dirhams on the first day, 'Goal' is 25% ahead. It's first day reads 200000 Dirhams."

The source further adds, "'Goal' is now second biggest after Shahrukh Khan's 'Don'. We are thrilled with the way the film has opened. The word of mouth is quite good and we can already see the film hitting bull's eye."

Closer home, the film has taken a flying start all over. As per first show figures gathered for INOX multiplex chain across the country, 'Goal' has opened to a 100% response in Baroda & Indore, 80% at Pune and Nagpur and 60% at Kolkata, Raipur, Lucknow and Bangalore.

Taking into consideration the fact that UTV has already recovered it's 16 crore budget into the film before the release itself, such heartening collections across globe are only going to prolong the celebrations for the production house and director Agnihotri.