Comment by Ar-Curunir

I don't think that's the case; British English would say "X help Y" when X is a collective noun referring explicitly to a group of people, eg a football team ("Manchester United have scored"), or a band ("Radiohead are playing a concert today"). This means that "Spain (the country) is ..." but "Spain (the football team) are ...".

See here for details: https://editorsmanual.com/articles/collective-nouns-singular...