Player's position

Generally speaking, there are 5 positions filled on every volleyball team. Each of these positions plays a specific role in a match.

Setter: first of all, he has the task for orchestrating the offense of the team. As a result, he has to place the ball in the air where the attackers can place it into the opposite court in order to gain a point. Secondly, he needs to have tactical accuracy as well as swift and skillful appraisal.

Libero: he’s a defensive player who is responsible for receiving the attack or the serve. To a large extent, he’s the player with the quickest reaction time and the best passing skills. In addition, he can substitute any other player on the court and wears a different colour jersey than his teammates.

Middle blocker: a player who can perform very fast attacks from the middle of the net. Moreover, he’s specialized in blocking, since he must attempt to stop the opponents’ attacks setting up a double block with his teammate at the sides of the court.

Wing-spiker: a player who attacks from near the left antenna. He’s usually one of the most consistent spiker of the team and, together with libero, one of the focal point for reception and dig.

Opposite: a player whose primary responsibilities are to put up a well-formed block against the opponents spikers and to be the most important focal point for the attack. As a result, he’s the player who usually scores most of the points.

The court

If I asked you to draw on a sheet of paper a volleyball court, almost anybody would be able to do it. But if I asked you the functions of each single zone, someone might find it difficult to answer. So here are the main features of a volleyball court.

First of all, the court is 18 m (59 ft) long and 9 m (29 ft) wide, divided into two 9m x 9m halves by a net. The top of the net is 2.43 m (7 ft) above the centre of the court for men’s competitions, while 2.24 m (7 ft) for women’s competitions. On each half there’s the “3 meter” (or “10 foot”) line, because it’s 3 m from the net. This line divides the court into the front and back zones that in turn are divided into 3 zones each. The numbering is the following:

After a team gains the serve, its members must rotate in clockwise direction, as the picture shows. The court is surrounded by an area called “free zone” that is a minimum of 3 m wide. In the end, an antenna is placed on each side of the net, marking an air zone off. If the ball doesn’t pass between the two antennas or touches one of them, the point will be awarded by the team that didn’t make this happen.

Welcome!

Hi there! I'm Andrea and this is my blog about volleyball. This is a sport that everybody knows, but maybe not everybody really knows it at all. Nowadays, every country has its national sport, which is a good thing because it entertains people and, especially during the national competitions, helps them to remember the patriotic spirit. But because of this reason seldom do we hear news about other sports. So what I’m going to do is just to talk as easy as possible about rules, competitions and values of this wonderful sport. I hope you'll love it and, if you don't like it, I hope you’ll change your mind about it.