National sports team

A national sports team 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, baseball, curling, ice hockey 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. For various reasons, National teams may not always composed of the best available individual players.
National teams, like other sporting teams, are often grouped by sex, age and/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.
In most cases, a national sports team represents a single sovereign state, though there are some exceptions to the rule. In several sports, the United Kingdom and wider British Isles divide along internal boundaries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are represented by separate national teams, while in Baseball and the Olympic Games they combine to form a Great Britain baseball and olympic teams. 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. In baseball, Dutch Antilles players play for both their home islands or for Kingdom of Netherlands, as their islands still are de jure still part of the Kingdom. The Iroquois Nationals and Haudenosaunee Nationals 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.

Popularity and notability

The popularity and notability of a national team depend on a number of factors:

Popularity and participation

Popularity of a national team also depends on the popularity of the sport in that country. In some countries a particular sport is very popular and may be a national sport but it does not always mean their national team is the most popular. Also, the national team's own league may be popular but the international competition it competes in is not. For example, the Papua New Guinea national rugby league team is extremely popular because the sport is popular in the country, even though the highest competition it competes in - the Rugby League World Cup - is not. In this case, there are numerous reasons for the lack of popularity of the World cup in Papua New Guinea. One is that the country is relatively small, population 8 million, and the expense of travel around the world to follow their team is too great for most. Another reason is that, because 75% of the professionals in the PNGL are not national citizens and therefore only eligible to play for their home country's national team, the Papua New Guinea National Team is not as successful internationally. Therefore, because the national league is inner territorial and more accessible to residents of Papua New Guinea and because spectators feel more invested and closer to their national town clubs, explains why a country's national sport's National Team may not be the most popular team in said area.
The exact opposite may be true as well where the national team is more popular than its respective league. For example, the Korean National Handball League is not extremely popular because handball is not a popular sport in Korea. But the South Korean National Team is popular because it internationally wins medals in the Olympics or World Cup Events.

Demographics

A particular sport in a country may be more popular among certain groups. For example, a women's team may be more popular than a men's team if there is a greater participation in the sport. Also, certain ethic groups may play the sport more than ohers, exemple is while asian-brazilians and venezuelan-brazilians historically make majority of the Baseball national teams, german-brazilians historically make majority of the fistball national teams.

Popularity of the competition

The popularity of the international competition that a team participates in has the biggest influence on the popularity of national sports team. There is a certain amount of prestige which is associated with competing on the "world stage".
Competitions with the most teams involved offer the most international competition and are often most popular. The most popular multi-sport international competitions that include team sports include the Olympic Games, Asian Games are relatively open for participation. Other competitions that are specific to sports, such as the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and Cricket World Cup allow many countries to qualify. For instance, the popularity of the Socceroos is heightened during the FIFA World Cup simply due to participation in a global event.
However, how even the competition is also matters. Even if there are a large number of participants, if a handful of teams dominate or if many of the teams are from countries where the sport lack sufficient depth to field a quality side, then the overall competition will not be taken seriously.

Competitiveness or success of a team

The popularity of a national team can also be due to a team being successful even if the sport itself is not popular in a country, a exemple is the growing popularitty of the Braziliian Baseball Team, due its recent results such as the silver medal at 2023 Pan-Am Games, and being able to qualify once again for the World Baseball Classic.
in the other hand, the streak of bad results and/or lack of titles may affect the popularity of a team, the Brazilian Football Association Team, has decreased in popularity, among other reasons, due the drought of 24 years without a FIFA World Cup title.

Strength of domestic competition

In many countries, the national team is the highest level of play available and as a result, it is often most popular with fans and spectators from that country.
In other countries, domestic competitions may be more competitive and offer a higher standard of play and reward.

Individual selection and participation

Depending on the sport, nation, and era in question, membership on the national team may be earned through individual play, players may be selected by a managers and coaches appointed by a national sport association, or a team may have to win a national championship in order to receive the right to represent their nation.

Eligibility

Various rules are used to determine who is eligible to play for which national team.

[Association football]

Under FIFA regulations, a player primarily qualifies for a national team by "holding a permanent nationality that is not dependent on residence in a certain country"—i.e., being a passport-carrying citizen of said country.
If a player's single nationality enables him or her to play for more than one FIFA member, any of the following will be sufficient to establish eligibility for a specific association under that nationality:

Birth "on the territory governed by the relevant association."
The birth of a biological parent or grandparent in said territory.
Two years of continuous residence in said territory at the time of their first appearance.

However, FIFA allows associations that share a common nationality to make an agreement among themselves, subject to FIFA approval, by which the residency criterion is deleted completely or amended to require a longer time limit. The most notable example of this situation is the United Kingdom, which has four national associations on its territory.
Players become permanently tied to a national association, with one exception to be outlined below, once they play in "an official competition of any category or any type of football". This includes any competition for national teams governed by FIFA, including qualifying matches for said competitions; international friendlies cannot tie players to a country under any circumstances.
Players who have more than one nationality, regardless of the method of acquisition, have slightly different eligibility requirements from those who have a single nationality, whether or not it is shared by multiple associations. In addition to holding the relevant nationality, any of the following will qualify a player to appear for said country:

Birth in that country.
Birth of a biological parent or grandparent in that country.
Five years of residence in that country after turning age 18.

This last rule is intended to prevent associations from naturalising players who lack birth or familial ties in that country, and immediately fielding them in international matches. FIFA will issue waivers to this last requirement if an association can show to FIFA's satisfaction that the player had significant ties to that country prior to naturalisation. A recent example of such a waiver is that of Gedion Zelalem, a German-born player of Ethiopian descent who has represented the U.S. at under-23 level. He emigrated with his father to the U.S. at age 9 in 2006, and left the country at age 16 to join Arsenal's youth academy. In 2014, he automatically became a U.S. citizen outside the normal naturalisation process when his father became a U.S. citizen, and the United States Soccer Federation applied for a waiver of the adult residency requirement, citing Zelalem's extended childhood residence in the U.S. He was approved to play for the U.S. several months later.
Separate from the above rules, a player who holds multiple nationalities may petition FIFA for a one-time change of nationality if they have never appeared in an official senior international match for any country, and holds the nationality of the second country prior to appearing for said country. The aforementioned Zelalem case falls within the scope of these rules, since he had played for Germany at youth level.