Why have libero

Join my mailing list today and get this free guide to making your practices the best , along with loads more coaching tips and information. His previous experience includes the college and university level in the US and UK, professional coaching in Sweden, and both coaching and club management at the Juniors level. Learn more on his bio page. The early days of the libero Back in the early days the libero was largely just a glorified defensive specialist.

Current libero use Things shifted, though. I can think of a few related reasons this shift has taken place, in no particular order: More teams are targeting the setter, causing them to play the ball defensively more often. OPPs are a bigger part of the offense now — especially for college teams running a Making them set takes them out of the attack.

Further, OPPs rarely set the middle when taking the second ball, often meaning just one attacking option. Coaches are more conservative with their digging target. They strongly favor digs to Target 2 about 3m line in the middle of the court. This would require an OPP to have to come further off the net to play a ball, often after they just got down from blocking. The only player who can replace the libero is the one whom the libero replaced.

Once there has been a replacement, a substitution may take place immediately before the next service beckon. Replacements may not occur during timeouts, but may occur after a timeout has ended. For USAV, if two liberos are used by a team, only one libero may be on the floor at a time. The fault is signaled as an illegal attack, followed by indicating the libero point toward them with an open hand. If the libero is injured and cannot continue play, a new one may be re-designated by the coach at any time.

Any substitute may be re-designated as the new libero and the former may not play in the remainder of the set remainder of the match in USAV rules. In subsequent sets, if a new libero is listed on the lineup, the former may change jerseys and play as a regular player.

The libero may not be used as a substitute for expelled or disqualified teammates. The libero may be used as an exceptional substitution for an injured player if no other substitutes exist; he or she must change into a regular uniform and the team continues with no libero.

If the libero is disqualified, he or she must be replaced by the player whom he or she replaced; play continues with no libero. There are six players, so six rotations, and then six match- ups with the opponent. It appears that people must deepen their thinking if they are to truly analyse the balance of power in the discipline. While it is true that the two teams occupy six successive positions, one must not forget that these rotations are done alternatively.

As depicted in Figure 4, a set is a succession of 12 different match-ups that cyclically occur. A set comprises approximately 2. This study by Albert showed that out of 21 games played by the Tours Volleyball team French champion for the season the average was 2. This average drops to 2. Figure 4: Succession of 12 different match-ups that cyclically occur in a volleyball set. Take the case of the team that is on the upper part of the court see Figure 4.

By observing this pattern one can see that out of a total of 12 match-ups, the libero is involved in service reception in six positions match-up 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 but only defends in four match-ups 2 , 6 , 8, and The libero is off the court for two defensive positions, when the two middle blockers are required to serve match-up 4 and One can therefore conclude mathematically that the libero contributes to the attack more often than the defence.

Thus, the introduction of this new role has not had the desired effect of redressing the imbalance between attack and defence. So what are the circumstances that led to this innovation? Originally, it was the volleyball playing countries of Asia who advocated the introduction of a specialist defensive player.

Influenced by their slighter, physical profile in contrast to their European and American counterparts, Asian players were recognised for their speed, agility, and intelligence in defence. Their initial proposal, however only permitted the specialist defensive player to participate in the game during the six phases of service. Of course in two out of the six phases, the middle blockers are required to serve, which meant that the libero could only remain on the court for four out of a possible 12 phases of play.

This was deemed to be insufficient to justify the creation of a new position. After much discussion and experimentation, a compromise was found which resulted in the introduction of the position of libero as it is used today. But the current examination shows that this player is actually helping to strengthen the attack as opposed to diminishing it. This reality totally contradicts the intention of the original Asian proposal and undermines the natural evolution of the rules of volleyball.

In fact this new regulation allows now having an expert in receiving, and therefore helps the attack more. It can therefore be argued that the introduction of additional rules derived from external pressures to make volleyball more attractive to the media has failed to redress the attack-defence imbalance and has even undermined the essence of the game. The introduction of the libero to enhance the game as a spectacle has in fact had an opposite effect.

The attack continues to dominate the offense and the duration of rallies is shorter. Additional side effects have also become more apparent. In reality, the disproportion between the power of the attack and the defence led to the development of strategies that guided the evolution of the game itself. In training, the teams repeatedly rehearse their service—reception and the ensuing predetermined offensive combinations.

The training of the libero mirrors this strategy. In other words the position of the libero has contributed greatly to enhancing performance volleyball side-out efficiency while failing to counter the decline of the effectiveness of the defence. Extremely high side-out efficiency has also had a direct influence on serving strategies.

Statistics show that the serving team has only a one in three chance to win the point. Usually, serves of this nature are combined with a well organised blocking system that reduces the attack choices even further. The offense therefore becomes more predictable and easier to defend.

This analysis on how the game is now played is universally accepted throughout the volleyball world idea first mentioned during professional training courses for coaches in the French National volleyball league.

It helps to explain and account for the very typical scenario that is described in the following section. The modern game of performance volleyball has now been reduced to a series of brief exchanges. An exchange is when the ball passes over the net twice. The first passage occurs when the ball is served; the second is the attack of the receiving team.

In these situations, the three blockers in defence have to cover at least four attackers, with one if not two of these attack options being launched from behind the three metre attack line. Thus, the four threat offense is incredibly difficult to defend against. The second passage over the net is therefore often the only exchange in a rally. As suggested earlier, in an effort to nullify the quadruple threat, teams resort to high risk serving strategies resulting in errors that disrupt the flow of the game.

Matches can be marred by a string of serving errors from both teams that seriously tarnish the game as a spectacle. The change to the texture of the ball surface may help to reverse the trend. The new ball, when contacted firmly, floats, or changes direction in the air more readily. As a result, teams are resorting back to adopting lower risk float and jump float serves, as opposed to the higher risk top spin jump serve, as a potent weapon against the service reception.

It remains to be seen how effective this strategy will be in redressing the attack-defence imbalance. Until this issue is resolved the game will be mainly characterised by brief encounters when the ball is hardly in play, punctuated with occasional longer and more exiting rallies.

Performance is conceived in achieving a raw result, an advantage on the scoreboard. The pleasure is gestural with a feeling of freedom and the intellectual control of the situation. In these exceptional rallies where defensive actions are often perceived as quite stunning, the spectacular side of volleyball reveals itself while showing a glimpse of the potential for outstanding entertainment.

Coaches are now recruiting liberos based primarily on their ability to pass. Similarly the training and development of the libero reflects market demands with more time and resources being spent on developing and refining reception techniques at the expense of more dynamic and extreme defensive skills.

The risk of allowing this trend to continue is that the libero makes only an effective contribution to the service reception and offense. The libero profile may then in turn contribute to the growth and sustainability of the imbalance between the attack and defence. But is this gain really worth it? It may then seem legitimate to ask how the libero reinforces the spectacular side of volleyball. It is rare that a good service reception is considered to be spectacular.

Volleyball continues to suffer from the mismatch between the power of the offense against the organisation and athleticism of the defence. The introduction of the libero may also be hampering advances in the technical development of the defence. The argument is pragmatic. It is a requirement of the game to defend, so it is preferable to strengthen the offensive potential.

But the more offensive potential is developed the less it is possible to defend. Proposals to change the regulation of the game must be able to break this vicious circle. Arguably the presence of cheerleaders on the court during technical time-outs has done little to improve the spectacle of the game. The authors believe the solution has to remain in the realm of the rules which are inherent to how the game is played. First, we must restore the balance between the serving and the receiving teams.

The game must break away from the normal passage of play when the ball passes over the net no more than two times. Opportunities for longer rallies need to be created while still ensuring the uncertainty of the outcome in each exchange.

This leaves the legislators with two options. The first is to increase the rights of defenders. Much has already been done to make the rules of contact on the ball less stringent. If even greater tolerance was afforded to the contact, the rules will start to contravene the very essence of the game. In volleyball, the ball is played by volleying, striking, or bumping. The ball cannot be caught or thrown.

We must therefore address the rights of the attacking team. The large number of offensive options available for a performance volleyball team are made possible by the position of the attack line situated three metres away from the centre line and net.

An interesting solution would be to reduce the offensive potential of the backcourt players. The authors suggest moving back the three metre attack line to a position of 4. It is anticipated that by increasing the distance from the net the effectiveness of the spike of backcourt players those permitted to execute an attack would reduce drastically without compromising the dynamic nature of the action.

The height of the action, its synchronisation with the frontcourt offense and the power of the spikes would remain the same. Instead of attacking at an actual distance of one metre or less from the net, we estimate that backcourt attackers would now spike at a distance of approximately 2.

This change would update the rule which introduced the three metre line to separate the front and back court in the first place. Restricting the offense of the backcourt player also takes into account the advancements in physical prowess of the athlete over the last 90 years.

Changing court markings will obviously have an economic downside. Initially, adhesive tape can temporarily overcome this difficulty until permanently painted markings can be phased in.

A number of the rules pertaining to the backcourt attack would remain unchanged numbers correspond to article numbers stated within FIVB regulations :. Let one now try to anticipate the effects of these new provisions. For blockers, only the front line opponents become prominent threats. The blockers can focus on the attacks at the net.

The balance of power at the net is restored. When the offensive setter is backcourt the three blockers are able to match up against the three opposing frontcourt attackers. When the opposing setter is frontcourt the three defending blockers now only have only two main attackers to cover. Backcourt spikes now become easier to control for the floor defence. Since those rules restrict hitting and setting at the position, the libero — based on size and the area that confines the position, as well — is often the best defensive player on the team and is used as a second defensive specialist.

A coach is limited to 15 substitutions per set, per NCAA rules. Most substitutions occur when a coach substitutes a hitter for a defensive player who just rotated to the front row, and vise versa — if that hitter does not play all six rotations. The libero substitutions do not count toward these 15 maximum substitutions.

Most of the time, the libero is used in the rotation of middle blockers on a team. When one middle rotates to the back row, the other middle will enter the match for the libero and be in the front row.