On the weekend Cameroon defeated Spain on penalties to take the Olympic crown in Sydney in front of 98,000 people, Mvondo Atangana, the man who might have been leading their attack, was in Govan, a million miles away from a goal, never mind gold. Atangana it is who forsook the chance to travel to Australia and instead opted for Dundee United’s increasingly desperate attempts to avoid a less exotic "down under" - the First Division. A 3-0 defeat by Rangers at Ibrox is just one of many trials the 21-year-old striker has had to endure since spurning Sydney for a side who have two points to rub together, though nothing more. While Atangana may not be an Olympian, he has stuck fast to ideals which make one. There is something heroic in seeing this young striker pounding the turf in a land far from home, for a club he had never even heard of just three short months ago, while his Cameroon team mates are feted at home.

And get this. He left the Olympic squad’s training base in Paris, because he was "desperate" to return to Dundee in order to make his United debut against Airdrie in the CIS Insurance Cup. This doughty act alone should render obsolete any further crude references to foreign "interlopers" in this country not being committed, or "up for it". And how United, with win-less runs burrowing back through millenniums, crave such dedication. Yet you would have understood if Atangana was spending his nights in his hotel in Dundee weeping gently into pillows, having watched re-runs of his country’s Olympic achievements on Eurosport. Instead, he stoutly defends his decision to remain at United. Alex Smith, his manager, had given him the choice to go, but he stayed because, having just signed a three-year deal with the club, he felt honour-bound to remain in times so trying. "A gold medal would have been good," he said. "But I am a young man. Maybe in another games I can have a medal." His Olympic (and now national) coach, Jean-Paul Akono, asked Atangana if United were in "Scotland’s first league", and when the answer was in the affirmative - for the time being at least - he was content to let him stay in Scotland. "Maybe I might have come here and had a good result, and Cameroon have a bad result," said Atangana. "I am happy that they did well. But you are a professional, and Dundee United is my job now.

I hope to become to Dundee United what the Olympic team have become to Cameroon." In these doleful times, United fans ache for a hero. "We need a cult figure," admitted Smith. "Someone like [Billy] Dodds, [Craig] Brewster or [Darren] Jackson. "I think Mvondo can still become an icon here." Today United play Motherwell at Fir Park, one of the few places where they can remember winning, though even this was back in April. They need a victory. Hell, they need a goal. Smith was "tipped-off" about Atangana when the player was in Paris with the Cameroon squad, and brought him over to Tannadice for an Under-21 game, in which he scored. Atangana then scored twice more in a reserve game, and Smith decided to offer the player, who has five full international caps, a long-term contract. However, he has yet to claim a goal in a first team game, although that said, the only player to score a goal for United in October was Paul Lambert, of Celtic. "The fact he has not scored is more down to the way we are playing, than him," commented Smith, truthfully. "He feels he needs to score, and that puts pressure on him." Smith referred to him as a "worrier," and Atangana admitted this is so. "It is difficult for me. I never play two or three games and not score. I say to my friend Tchami [United’s other Cameroon international] that ‘I don’t understand’. He told me it was my first time in Scotland.

He said I just have to wait for the chance, and find the spot." Despite the on-field concerns, he feels at home in his new city. Even the matter of Jim McLean’s alleged grapple with a reporter has not been able to fill him with unease. He has been in stranger places before. He spent a year playing in Saudi Arabia, at a club called Alfath, and was the sole Catholic in a team of Muslims. He was nonplussed when during the interval of his first game, they all knelt down to pray. Even McLean at his most despotic did not demand such devotion. Atangana returned to his homeland when his father died, for custom demands that he, as eldest son, must become head of the household. You wonder if this refined sense of duty is another reason for his decision not to desert United. Instead of the world, he crossed a street. Against Dundee at Dens Park in September, he offered the most explosive performance burst of any United player this season.

This was encapsulated by a sublime bicycle kick, as though it were acrobatics at which he had been chosen to represent his country in Sydney. Alas, the ball struck the bar, and it is this wretched luck which has bedevilled Smith and his side all season. Had Atangana been playing for the Yaounde-based Tonnerre Kalava Club, his former team, the ball would have soared into the net. Remarkably, he has already scored with a bicycle kick in a derby game, for KPC against Canon, in front of 60,000. Having been asked whether he was surprised to find two football grounds mounted on opposite kerbs, he said he was not, for it was the same in Cameroon. Further pressed, it emerged that KPC and Canon share the same stadium, rather than road. "They are closer", he said, not unreasonably. He may act older than his age, but Atangana is filled with the hope and desire of any 21-year- old. He wants to play in a World Cup finals, preferably the next one, in Japan and Korea. First, though, he must make a more pressing journey - that which takes him down the path towards his first goal for his club. Some redoubtable United fans will travel with him every step of the way. Like Atangana, they know all about sacrifice in this sparse, sparse season. ©The Scotsman