Disclaimer: Blog posts represent the opinions of their author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of MVSA the organization.

When evaluating whether a specific club fits your family’s needs, you need to ask a lot of questions. But are you asking the right questions? Despite its importance, one of the questions families often fail to ask is "How many players do you carry per team?". Why is that important? Not only does the number of players per team directly impact your athlete’s experience during the season, it is a huge indicator of the underlying priorities of the club. Are they truly concerned with the well-being of every athlete in their program or might there be other conflicting priorities at play?

So how exactly does team roster size impact your athlete? The short version of the story is that the number of players per team can have a huge impact on any one player's involvement during team matches. MVSA tries to limit their teams to ten players for this very reason. Why is the number ten important? Well... to understand that is going to require a "long version" of the story where we dive deep into the rules of volleyball, volleyball offensive systems, athlete development philosophy, and other related topics.

Doing this topic justice will take time, so I am breaking the discussion up across multiple posts. It will also get quite technical at times, but please stick with me. The more educated you are, the better the decisions you make.

In part 1 (this post) I will examine some relevant rules of volleyball as well as volleyball offensive systems. Even if you believe you are familiar with these topics, please read on since future posts are highly dependent on a firm understanding of these foundational elements. In part 2, I will analyze how everything discussed in part 1 directly impacts player involvement in matches and why it matters. I will then wrap everything up in part 3 with a discussion of club motivations and strategies for non-ideal team rosters. I hope you enjoy the journey.

Club volleyball in the United States is governed by rules as dictated by USAV Volleyball.¹ The rules relevant for our discussion (substitutions as well as how players move around the court during the match) are covered in the following sections of the indoor rule book:²

• 7.3.1 (Team Starting Line-Up, page 43)
• 7.4 (Positions, page 45)
• 7.6 (Rotation, page 46)
• 15.5.1 (Substitution, page 65)
• 15.6 (Limitation Of Substitutions, page 65)

In volleyball, the court is split in half by a net. The players from each team occupy their half of the court and players must stay on their side of the net during play (with a few exceptions). Prior to the start of each set of play, teams will submit a starting line-up. The line-up “indicates the rotational order of the players on the court. This order must be maintained throughout the set” (7.3.1). The “rotational order” of players is numbered 1 through 6. Additionally, both sides of the court are separated into six "zones" or “positions”, and each player will start the set in a position matching their rotational order as given on the starting line-up. This is shown in the image below.

If a team has the first serve for a set³ then the player who occupies position 1 (i.e., the player with rotational order 1) will be the first server. When the team that isn't serving wins a point (called siding out) the players on that team (and that team only) will rotate clockwise around their side of the court as shown below – in this example, Team B had first serve but Team A won the point, and rotated as a result.

The player on Team A with rotational order 2  will now serve since they rotated into position 1. While players move from position to position on the court, the rotational order they started the set with does NOT change. What position you occupy on the court is generally unimportant for the purposes of our discussion. What *is* important is the following two points:

• When a substitution is made, the player going into the match inherits the rotational order of the player they go in for.
• Once given a rotational order, either through the starting line-up or via substitution, a player is locked into that order and can NOT occupy any other for the entirety of the set.

While it is possible to have an unlimited number of players (ignoring roster size limits) with the same rotational order, it is generally uncommon to have more than two do so. Typically, one player will occupy the rotational order while it goes through the front-row positions of the court (4, 3, and 2) and another player will occupy the back-row positions (1, 6, and 5). Why is that? It is because only front row players are allowed to participate in a block at the net as well as attack the ball above the net when jumping from in front of the 3 meter (attack) line. For this reason, shorter players tend to be substituted out for taller players in the front-row positions (i.e., defensive players will be substituted with offensive players). If a player is never substituted as they rotate around the court, they are said to be an “all around” or “six rotation” player.

In club volleyball, players serve in one of a number of roles on the team. These roles are often called “positions”, but we will avoid that term here to prevent confusion with the court positions discussed previously. A role dictates your responsibilities during play along with generally where you play on the court during points. The following roles are the most commonly used:

• Setter (S)
• Outside Hitter (OH)
• Middle Hitter (MH)
• Right Side Hitter (often called an Opposite - OPP)
• Defensive Specialist (DS)

In addition to the "normal" roles listed above, there is also a special position called a Libero (L). This player/role is easy to spot on the court because they wear a different color jersey than the rest of their team. For our purposes, the Libero is unique from all other roles in two major ways:

• The Libero can only go in for (replace) a player in one of the back row positions (5, 6, and 1)
• These Libero "replacements" are unlimited and do not count toward a team's number of substitutions

While there are many offensive systems widely utilized in the sport of volleyball, two systems, called a 5-1 and a 6-2, are the most common at the club level.⁴ For the purposes of our discussion, and relevant to the topic of player involvement, a 5-1 offers fewer people an opportunity to participate in a set. As a result, we will use a 6-2 as the basis for further discussion in order to look at this topic from a "best case" type of scenario.

In a 6-2 offensive system, players will typically start each set in a rotational order based on the role they play. So, when a set starts, the players will be arranged on the court as shown below:⁵

In a 6-2 system, a substitution/replacement is typically made when a player rotates from the front row to the back row, or from the back row to the front row. These substitutions/replacements are usually done with the following role pairings:

• Opposite and Setter (substitution)
• Outside Hitter and Defensive Specialist (substitution)
• Middle Hitter and Libero (replacement)

In these pairings, the Opposite will go through the front row, Setter the back row. Outside Hitter will go through the front row, Defensive Specialist the back row. Middle Hitter will go through the front row, Libero the back row. In order to not waste subs at the start of a set, a coach will typically start a set with these substitutions/replacements already in place, meaning their team will actually start play in a set with the following players on the court:

Given these standard roles and the substitution/replacement pairings previously discussed, a coach will often build a team with athletes that are capable of filling the following number of roles:

• Two setters (S1 & S2)
• Two Outside Hitters (OH1 & OH2)
• Two Middle Hitters (MH1 & MH2)
• Two Opposites (OPP1 & OPP2)
• Two Defensive Specialists (one of which will be the Libero) (DS & L)

That is a total of ten players. You could technically make an argument for carrying three Defensive Specialists (total of 11 players) such that you can substitute for both Outside Hitters when they rotate into the back row.⁶ However, Outside Hitters are partly differentiated from other hitters (Middles and Opposites) by an expectation that they should be capable of playing defense, and more importantly, participating in serve receive (i.e., be good passers). This means they should not be substituted out when they rotate into the back row. Or, at the very least, they should be given the possibility of "playing all-around" at least some of the time.⁷ As such, you can equally make an argument that nine players (only carrying one defensive player who is the Libero) is the perfect number. However, the club season is long and having only nine players offers no real margin for injuries, absences, etc.. Ten is therefore a good middle ground and becomes more important when you look more closely (as we will very soon).

In this post we have looked at the substitution and rotation rules of volleyball. We have also looked at one of the most common offensive systems (a 6-2) and how the roles required by it can be used to build out a team roster of ten players. In part 2, we will take what we have learned and use it to analyze exactly what happens with player involvement during match play. We hope you will join us for that!

Continue to part 2.

¹ High school, college, and other volleyball programs (e.g., recreational leagues) are governed by different rules and as a result you would need to analyze their specific rules in order to determine how they are impacted by team roster size and to what degree.

² The rule book is updated every two years with the current version being the 2023-25 edition.

³ Section V, item #2 (page 132) in the rulebook if you are curious how this is determined.

⁴ At least for age groups 12/13U and higher. At younger age groups you tend to see more variety, with systems that emphasize players learning all positions/skills (like a 6-6) showing up.

⁵ According to "overlap rules" (7.4.2 and 7.4.3 in the rulebook if you *really* are interested) players must stay in their current position, relative to players in adjacent (and non-diagonal) positions, until the ball has been put into play by a serve. Once served, players are free to move to a place on the court more appropriate for the role they are playing. For example, in this diagram, the front row OH would move to position 4 after the serve.

⁶ Remember that since the Libero replaces the middles, the remaining DS can only replace one of the Outside Hitters during the set. The other Outside Hitter will not be substituted for.

⁷ Do not mistake my inclusion of this link as endorsement of all the suggestions made in it. Cutting the number of subs allowed in the youth game would only exacerbate the problems that will be detailed in this series unless all clubs also lower team roster sizes at the same time. I wouldn't hold my breath on that happening.