how to do simple nginx rewrite

So I'm not sure where the issue is

situation, on this url:

domain.com/team/the-bears/

it gives: File not found. (on the browser)
in the errror logs: nginx access error 404 and
- 5977#0: *44518 FastCGI sent in stderr: "Primary script unknown" while reading response header from upstream


the apache & nginx settings page, under
Additional nginx directives

i've tried all these... all same result
location /team/ {
#rewrite $uri index.php?vTeam=$1&vDept=$2;...

how to do simple nginx rewrite