Only last week I had to deal with this issue in class when one of my students asked me.
“Does the word “team” take a singular or a plural verb?” and my answer was: “Both”.
There are some singular words in British English that can take both singular or plural verbs and pronouns depending on what you want to say about them.
Singular forms are used when we see the “team” as one thing, as an impersonal unit.
The team is going to lose
Plural forms are used when the group is considered as a collection of people doing personal things like taking decisions, hoping or wanting .
The team are full of enthusiasm (referring to every member of the team)
Group nouns which can be used with both singular and plural are:
party school staff team government jury family
public club class firm the BBC comittee
“police”, on the other hand, is normally used with a plural verb
The police were not able to find anything
