Week 4 of FIVB 2018 Volleyball Nations League has concluded. InstaVolley takes the chance to cover Jiangmen leg in China where gathered 4 teams (top 5 in the world) China, USA, Brazil and Russia in the same pool to compete against each other.
Instead of writing a match review which you may find everywhere from the internet, we would like to highlight one interesting observation from this leg which may become a key trend in the volleyball gameplan.
Attackers Played as Libero
In Jiangmen leg, it comes to our attention that USA, Brazil and Russia had assigned players Kelsey Robinson, Gabriella Souza and Yulia Kutiukova who originally played as wing spikers as libero. Coincidentally, Italy team’s wing spiker Miryam Sylla also played as libero in week 4.
It is a significant implication that top tier teams in the world no longer rely solely on libero player for the defense but began to groom their attackers to be all-rounded with comprehensive reception and defense skills. It is believed that the head coaches do not intend to train up one more libero from the pool of spikers. On the contrary, under this strategic plan, the overall reception and defense of the whole team can be strengthened with “two liberos” while at the same time the attacking power can be sustained in the back court without having to substitute a defensive player for a spiker in some critical moments in a game.
What do you think about the arrangement? Or do you find any other interesting findings to share with us?
Photo: © InstaVolley
