Technical point of view of WCH in Poland by Daniel Castellani

Poland WCH 2014

Latest technical changes during the last Volleyball Men’s World Championship 2014 in Poland

At the moment I compared the unofficial DataVolley statistic numbers I collected from the two scouts presented in Poland and the games I saw live and on the television from the latest Men’s World Championship 2014 in Poland, I came to a few conclusions:

1. TWO REAL RECEIVERS

In the near past, most of the starting roosters of the national teams consisted of a volleyball players with more physical predispositions, much stronger in attack than the other skills. Coaches sometimes managed to put 2 opposite hitters to play together, substituting one receiver with opposite risking to have a lower numbers in reception, but getting more power in attack and serve and hoping to achieve better final result. Taking more risk in offense than in defense hoping to win. The capability to receive and defend was not the primary thing. 

It seems that during the last Men’s World Championship in Poland something has changed. If we take a look at the first 8 ranked teams after the tournament, Poland played with a real receivers like Winiarski, Kubiak and Mika, Brazil played with almost 2 liberos (numbers show that Murilo attacked just a few balls during the whole tournament) and Lucarelli (height 195cm) USA with Sander relatively not so tall volleyball player for today’s volleyball and Lotman as a classic prototype of a modern receiver, Russia with Savin, Ilinykh  and Spiridonov (receivers),  France N’Gapeth, Italy Parodi…etc. The general tendency was to play with 2 real receivers with a high level technical skills in reception and in consequence in defense.

All this volleyball players might not be so tall (height max. 200 cm or 6′ 7″), but we should not underestimate their physical capabilities. Coaches preferred volleyball players for the positions of the receivers that are not so high, but that can produce more in reception, defense and with more technical capacity in attack.

2. HIGHER NUMBERS IN DEFENSE

Players generally started to dig more balls up in defense during the game.  This means that everybody tended to try to keep the ball in play, to make more re-bounces against the block, to make tips or simply put difficult balls on the other side rather than taking a risk and making a direct error. 

3. LESS MISTAKES IN ATTACK

In the correlation to what I wrote previously, the number of the direct mistakes in attack went down. It could be seen the tendency not to take the big risk in different situations of attack. Players had to rely more on their teammates and on their team system of block-defense. Regarding to this, also the number of kill blocks became inferior than before (before avg. was 2,6-2,8 per set).

4. FLOAT SERVICE SUCCESS

The success/yield (difference between the direct errors and the positive result of the serve: reception / (slash, ball directly on the other side of the net), reception – (minus, outside 3m line) and = (double minus, direct point (ace)) of the jump serve in comparison with the float serve is much lower now. 

The number of volleyball players making float service is much higher than before! It means that the development of a good float service became very important. In some systems before, there were teams with a 3 players who were making strong jump service and other 3 players who were trying to put the float service inside the court and give the balance to the team’s play. 

What was seen during this Men’s World Championship is that the float service became the real weapon, taking more risk than before. The kind of a risk that coaches managed during the game regarding of the opponent they had on the other side of the net and regarding of the particular moment of the game. The latest Men’s World Championship showed that players serving float service become very important part, if not decisive. 

To follow this, the tactical situation becomes more dynamic, coaches can decide which tactic they should apply: the previous system with 3 strong jump servers or to give to the float servers more freedom. If the opponent is receiving not so good the float service, the coach can apply the tactic to call the servers who serve good float service to take more responsibility and to risk their float service even more in order to create more problems on the other side. 

Conclusion:

I came to a conclusion that the general idea of the first 10 ranked teams on this Men’s World Championship in Poland was: 

• Use more players that have more balance between their physical and technical capacities
• Clear tendency to make play receivers with high technical capacities: reception-dig-attack
• Clear tendency to lower the total number of mistakes in attack, reception and service
• Develop and manage the specific technical parts of the attack like tips, re-bounces…
• Technical development of the float service, changing it from a “no-mistake” to “attack-service”
• More balanced and more dynamic use of the float and jump service during the game
• From the psychological point, players have to be more prepared for a longer rally points and games that will last more longer. Players will need to have more mental resistance than before. 

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