grammatical number - Why not an s on "speed" in "Ukraine speed to test new-look Germany defence"

This url links to an Australian article (sourced from Reuters) about a football team. The article has the following title:

Ukraine speed to test new-look Germany defence

I understand that the word "speed" is a verb here. However, why not "speeds"? Since "Ukraine" is a singular noun, I expect it to be "Ukraine speeds".

UPD. Thanks to the detailed comments and answers below, it turns out the question is not about collective nouns, but rather about "speed" being a noun and not a verb.

UPD2. As noted in comments replying to my UPD above: Not necessarily! If the rest of the article were in American English, yes, it would clearly be a noun. But the rest of the article is clearly written in British English or similar and "Ukraine" as an identifier for the team is a plural noun in BrEng. (We know it's BrEng because it says "Ukraine... are certain to test...") So it really could be either, the only way to be sure would be to ask the author their intent.

Now I'd really like to find out from the author!