@PhilSweet My sentence was just an example. Of course I could use another construction, but that wasn't my point. I was asking if it should be used as a singular or a plural noun.

Interesting, I wasn't looking at it from that point of view. So you would refer to a single row of the standings table as a standing for the country X?

ok, thanks. I will wait if anyone finds a good reference for this and then accept the answer.

well, this is my belief too. You didn't add anything to what I know. I am looking for a reference. In the dictionary, you can find expressions such as "My son's friends crashed our house last weekend" (see thefreedictionary.com/crash), where the meaning is not "crash the house into something" :)

In all the cases the audience will understand. I was wondering which one is both correct and helps to engross the audience most.

sorry, I meant "We let A be...", not "let us A be". I edited the post accordingly.