Goal produced by UTV Motion Pictures, co-stars Bipasha Basu, Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani and was shot entirely in Britain. In it, Abraham plays Sunny Bhasin, a UK-born Indian who plays for a Southall football club.

Abraham agrees it is difficult for a Bollywood actor to keep doing films that are off the beaten track, but is quick to add that resistance to such a strategy within the industry is weakening appreciably.

"A new approach to film-making has taken roots in the Mumbai industry," he say’s.
"How else do you explain an actor with a name and face like mine being so openly accepted these days?

"I do the kind of films that I believe in," he says. "Some people in the industry might feel that I am sailing against the tide and will have to pay for it. They were sceptical about my ability to pull off the role in Water. I am now also doing Deepa Mehta's next film, Exclusion, with Amitabh Bachchan."

He believes the gap between commercial and non- mainstream cinema is bound to get narrower by the year. 

"So-called small films today come out with 150 prints while a Yash Chopra film releases with 1,000 prints. But a day will come when you will see 400 prints of offbeat films being released against 800 prints of a Yashraj film. The industry is changing," Abraham says.

Referring to Goal, he says: "It's a commercially oriented film but completely realistic. It addresses issues like racism, cultural assimilation and social assertion in a way that is bound to have international appeal. It's about the journey of a man who travels from playing for a British club to turning out for a South Asian team to assert his identity - it's a story of inspiration, glory and victory."

Abraham, supposedly, performed every single soccer stunt in Goal himself, from transferring the ball from his feet to under his neck to attempting difficult bicycle kicks.

"I have done with football here what I did with bikes in Dhoom. Every single move in the film is authentic. Of course, it took me lots of hard practice."

Synopsis:
Get Set…GOAL is a story of that great optimistic trait - hope. The characters in this drama fight the battle of hope through relationships, pride and their dreams.Southall United is a football club going through a major crisis. The team has no stars, no sponsors, no spectators and most importantly, no coach. Yet, it nurtures the hope that it will win the cup this time. The head of the city council, Anne, collaborates with Johnny Patel, a sports commentator, to acquire the large tract of land that is with the club. Together, they highlight the club’s lackluster performance and threaten to have the land taken from them, unless things change. Their biggest hope is that the team will lose, yet again. Sir Devi Dayal Dhariwal, owner of the club, hopes to save the land from the greed of Anne and Johnny Patel.Hanif, the captain of Southall United, plays the one last card the club has. He hopes to bring in a celebrated ex-player to coach them and then, there is Sunny Bhasin (John Abraham) who hopes to become a member of a top team and play first division football - a dream every aspiring British footballer yearns for. Will the coach manage to pull his team together? How does Sunny become a part of this team? And most importantly, will the club win the title and retain the ground? Get Set…GOAL - a contemporary story of the Asian community in UK, told through the dynamic prism of professional football.