EVERY footballer has a dream, most of these are hopes nurtured from childhood.

It is difficult to believe, though, that the boyish reflections of Stefan Scepovic would include sitting on a sleigh in Glasgow with two reindeers and a Scottish internationalist for company and with a Santa hat worn at a jaunty angle.

This was the fate of the 24-year-old Serb yesterday as he helped publicise the Celtic Foundation's Christmas Appeal with his captain, Scott Brown. The eternal assertion that the festive season has come early may be backed by the striker who has found at least two reasons to be merry in the past week.

His career at Celtic has just begun but one of the demands of a player who costs £2.2m from Sporting Gijon is that he must score goals. Scepovic has now hit two in succession, against FC Astra in the Europa League and against Kilmarnock in the league on Sunday.

Scepovic is one of those characters whose sober demeanour ensures he could be confused with a professional mourner, even wearing that Santa hat, but there is relief that the goals are now a matter of fact rather than of promise.

He is a focused young man. He yesterday spoke continually yesterday of how he had to work on his game, how he had to learn to adapt to the Scottish style and how his relaxation periods in Glasgow were restricted to occasional visits to the city centre.

This concentration on football is part nature, part nurture. His father, Sladan, played for a Partizan Belgrade side who won a memorable European tie in 1989 and has both encouraged and advised his son to play football abroad.

Stefan has thus played professional football for clubs in Serbia, Belgium, Italy, Israel and now Scotland.

"It was different in my father's day," he said. "It was the rule in the former Yugoslavia that you could not leave the country until you were 27 years old. That was reduced to 26 and 15. You get more experience when you go out of the country and every club loses about seven young players. Some players take their chance when they leave, some players take their time. I have said I would take a little time to adapt to the football here but I really believe in me and I can do a lot better."

A rain-swept Celtic Park on Sunday offered a stark contrast to the Primera Division but Scepovic is more concerned with the style of play. "Here it is more direct to the strikers sometimes and I need to work on my game," he said.

He has used his time on the bench to study Ronny Deila's pressing style of play. "I have worked on it in training and it is better."

This devotion to hard labour has been part of a career that began in 2008 with OFK Beograd.

"This club has a good a academy. One day the director called me and said I had to go to Italy and Sampdoria," he said. "I knew nothing about it - it was the first time I had heard. It was a Tuesday and on Wednesday I went home and my mum and dad were asking: so where is it you are going?

"They knew nothing about it either. In Italy they like experienced players so it was a new experience for me as I was so young. I learned a lot about how to play striker in training.

"Maybe if I waited two or three years more and stayed in Serbia it might have been different. But I always believed in myself."

His future career included Club Brugge before La Liga and the Premiership became home. He has, though, spent all of his adult life on foreign fields."It was difficult being away from home," he said.

The move to Sampdoria was particularly testing as he joined a Serie A side that included such as Antonio Cassano. "I remember in the first one or two months that there was one other Serbian player there, and he helped me a lot. I was in the hotel a lot but it became a bit easier the second and third time I was away. Now it is normal."

His reflection on a career spent abroad is simple. "It can make me stronger," he said. "Maybe if I did not go outside Serbia and had no change then you would never know what might have happened.

"I learned a lot in Italy because there were very good players around me and I was young and could look at them in training - it was a very good experience for me."

But does he miss La Liga on a day when even the reindeers were shivering at Lennoxtown and a match tonight against Partick Thistle in the cold beckons?

"Of course, it's nice when you play against those kind of players. But why not do it with Celtic in the Champions League next year?"