14. National team rules
In Sokker, every country has both a Senior National Team (NT) and an Under-21 National Team (U21 NT). New countries must wait at least 13 weeks establish their National Teams. Each National Team has its own coach, referred to as the NT coach, who can select players and schedule matches according to the following rules.

NT Coach

Each season, users from a country choose the coach for each National Team. Users can only vote for coaches in their respective countries but can apply for coaching positions in any country. To be eligible as a candidate, a user must have played the game for at least 16 weeks. These elections start at the end of the season. Elections start on Sunday, these elections last 2 weeks.

To become a candidate, a user must apply on the elections page of the respective National Team. Users can participate in only one NT coach election at a time.

Once the elections start, each candidate can open only one thread in the appropriate forum. Spamming forums, soliciting votes through SK-mails, or spamming users Guest Books is strictly prohibited and may result in forum banning and/or a financial penalty.

The candidate with the most votes will become the coach for one season until the next election. In case of a tie, the user who joined the game first will be declared the winner.

An NT manager elected by users cannot resign from their position. When you accept the role of an NT coach, it is your responsibility to serve the full term until the end of the season.

Players

The NT coach can select up to 40 players for the National Team, choosing from players with the same nationality as the NT. NT coaches typically have access to the full skills of a player unless the player's owner decides to hide the skills (player owners can decide to either allow or disallow for the NT coach to view the skills of their players). If the owner hides the skills from the NT coach, the NT coach cannot see the skills of these players, unless they are listed on the transfer market or the transfer advertisements. The NT coach can request skill information from owners, but owners are not obligated to provide this information. However, most users are willing to collaborate with the NT.

Players owners cannot prevent their players from being called up to the NT, and they cannot release any player while they are called up to an NT. National Team players are also protected if the team that owns them becomes a "bot." Current members of a National Team who have played at least one game for the NT will be transferlisted when a new team replaces the "bot" team.

Under-21 NT coaches can only call up players up to 21 years old. At the end of each season, they must remove players who exceed this age limit.

Stadium

Each NT has its own stadium with a capacity of 60,000 (40,000 seats and 20,000 benches). These stadiums have standard dimensions and feature Angel grass, provided by DivineGrass. Pitch conditions are usually close to perfect. The NT Stadium is the default venue for home games, but coaches can choose any other arena in the country for a particular match, either for tactical reasons or simply for fun.

NT Matches

NT and U21 NT matches take place every Saturday (local time for the team playing at "home"). The World Cup Qualifications and World Cup Finals alternate between seasons. Official matches include World Cup Qualifications and World Cup Finals, which follow the same rules.

World Cup

As in the real world, Sokker hosts a World Cup for National Teams. The full World Cup spans two seasons: the first season hosts the Qualifications, and the second season hosts the Finals.

Qualifications

All teams participate in the Qualifications, with NTs grouped based on their NT ranking.
Teams ranked 1-17 are in Pot A, teams 18-34 in Pot B, and so on. Teams from Pot A occupy the first position, Pot B teams the second, and so forth. Each group plays three rounds, with the top team from each group and the 15 best 2nd teams qualifying for the Finals.
Group standings are determined by:
1. Points in the qualification group
2. Goal difference
3. Goals scored
4. Number of victories
5. Ranking points at the time of the draw.

Finals

The Finals consist of a Group Stage followed by a Knock-Out phase.

In the Group Stage, the 32 qualified teams form 8 groups of 4. The top 8 teams are placed in the first drawing pot, the next 8 in the second, and so on. Each group plays three rounds, with the top 2 teams advancing to the Knock-Out phase. Group standings follow the same criteria as Qualifications.

The Knock-Out phase consists of four rounds played over four consecutive weeks, following cup rules. The rounds include Eight-finals (16 teams), Quarter-finals (8 teams), Semifinals (4 teams), and the Final, which crowns the World Champion. Thus, a new World Champion is determined every two seasons for each category.
The Bronze Cup is for both semi-final losers, and they do not play a 3rd place match.

Friendlies

It's the responsibility of NT coaches to arrange friendlies, similar to friendlies between regular SK users. Free weeks between official matches and at the end of the season are available for these friendlies. Teams that do not qualify for the World Cup Finals have a full season for friendlies. Coaches often arrange friendlies at the start of the season, but they can also be scheduled weekly after the previous match. The players statistics and cards are counted the same as official matches, and red cards are cleared only if the player remains a member of the NT. Friendlies also affect the NT's ranking in the same way as official matches.

Injuries and training in friendly NT games do not count; this means that when a player gets injured during an NT friendly, this player will not be injured afterwards (although, they will leave the pitch if the injury is severe). Also, training is not counted from a friendly NT game.

Official matches do give some training (less than an official match at your own team) and injuries will remain afterwards.