Rio 2016: Qatar’s ‘mercenaries’ fuel Olympic dream

It was hard, according to Croatian back Marko Bagaric, but the Olympic dream can make people do strange things.

Bagaric's team beat his homeland Croatia 30-23 in a stunning opening to the Olympic handball tournament in Rio.

His team is Qatar and he is one of 11 “mercenaries” in the oil and gas rich Gulf state’s 14-man squad for the Games.

The hardest part for the 30-year-old Bagaric came during the national anthems. After, it was a match like any other.

“The worst feeling was during the national anthem. Ah, but what can I do Qatar gave me the opportunity to play in the Olympic Games. It is the dream of any sportsman.

Qatar have made great waves in the sport, becoming the first team outside of Europe to win a world medal.

But it has not been without controversy. The team is made up of five players from the Balkans, two Syrians, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, a Cuban and an Egyptian.

Qatar have spent millions on assembling this team, thanks in part to lax qualifying rules in handball.

Unlike most sports, a player can change nationalities, such as Frenchman Bertrand Roine, a world champion with his own country just five years ago.

Players need wait only three years without representing one country before they can run out for another. Nations can also field an unlimited number of such players.

It means Qatar, ranked just 108 in the world, have arrived at the Olympics with a genuine chance of claiming the gold medal — which would be the country's first in any sport.

However, Roine denies rumours of huge financial incentives.

“When I see in the press that we were paid millions to come here, it's wrong,” he said.

“In my case I got zero. It was more a sporting opportunity than a financial one.”

That may be hard to swallow for many people who will be interested to see how Roine reacts during the national anthems on Tuesday when his new country face his old one.

If it's anything like Bagaric, you could be forgiven for imagining him humming a different tune to himself.