National sports team

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A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport.

The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for example association football (soccer), curling, or basketball. However, it can be applied to groups of individuals representing a country where regular play is done by individuals, and individual scores are aggregated to a get a team result. Examples of this association are found in artistic gymnastics, archery, or figure Skating.

National teams often compete at various levels and age groups, and have a number of different selection criteria based on national and their respective federations' rules. National teams are not always composed of the best available individual players.

National teams, like other sporting teams, are often grouped by sex, age or other criteria. The most prestigious national teams are often the senior men's and women's teams. However, they may not be the most popular or successful.^[1]

In most cases, a national sports team represents a single sovereign state, though there are some exceptions to the rule. In several sports, the British Isles divides along internal boundaries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are represented by separate national teams, while in the Olympic Games they combine to form a Great Britain team.^[2] The Ireland national rugby union team represents the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in rugby union, and all-island teams are fielded in a number of other sports. Some Olympic teams represent dependent territories, including Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Cook Islands. The Iroquois Nationals (men) and Haudenosaunee Nationals (women) lacrosse teams of the First Nations Lacrosse Association are the only teams representing any group of Indigenous people of the Americas that plays in an international level.^[3][4]