The Decision-Making of High-Level Volleyball Setters in the 2021-2022 Volleyball Men’s Superliga: Does the Opponent Matter?

Abstract

Our primary objective in this study was to investigate the offensive strategies employed in the attack phase of men’s volleyball, specifically focusing on side-out as stratified by the type of confrontation that was determined by the opponent’s team performance. We analyzed 5524 attacking actions during 22 games of the 12 teams that participated in the Volleyball Men’s Superliga (season 2021–2022). Based on their final rankings in the championship, we classified these teams into three tiers: high-performance, intermediate-performance, and low-performance. Subsequently, we examined the dynamics of these matches using Social Network Analysis. We found that the opponent teams' performance levels did not influence the game dynamics. Notably, the eigenvector values were prominently higher for Attack Zones 2 and 4, wherein the middle-blocker jumped to attack close to the setter across all networks. Thus, setters opted for traditional and low-risk strategies to minimize errors, disregarding available information about the skill level of the opposing team, making their offensive tactics predictable.

Social Network Analysis: Understanding Volleyball Dynamics through Match Opponents

“…This fact is reinforced when analyzing the setting zone, as eigenvector values are consistently higher for settings carried for zone 3. Previous research in this area aligns partially with the presented results, demonstrating that eigenvector values are higher for the TF and TC, respectively [9,10]. However, there is a difference in this offensive construction of the game when teams win or lose games.…”

“…In this context, these teams probably achieved better performances by adapting better to the opponent; that is, the decision making in the offensive construction was based on the specifying aspects of the context about the ecology of the game, something that has been discussed in the literature for a long time [7,54,55,73]. On the other hand, the teams in third and fourth place opted for traditional, low-risk game strategies, suggesting that setters need better ability to interpret the game scenario, as it seems that the offensive construction was predetermined and neglected information from the opponent's defensive system [9] . Therefore, except for the championship finalist teams, the performance of the other teams depends on the players' characteristics, mainly attackers, since there are no differences in the playing pattern adopted against the opponents.…”

“…Therefore, when scrutinizing team performance, one must consider the relationships within the game, involving the team, the opponent, the environment, and the multiple interactions that arise from these dynamics [5][6][7]. Based on the information obtained from game analysis, the teams' behavior patterns are identified, strengths and weaknesses are detected, and tactical possibilities emerge, allowing departure from traditional playing structures [8][9][10].…”

“…In this context, the analysis of Complex I in volleyball underscores a relationship between reception and subsequent actions, such as the setting effectiveness [3,32], attack tempo [4,31,33], attack effect [10,19,33,34], and blocker number [4,9,33]. Furthermore, several studies indicate an association or prediction [23,24,33,[35][36][37] between the game actions of complex I, highlighting that receptions that allow an organized attack, quick settings, and powerful attacks culminate in attack point [33,[38][39][40].…”

“…In this framework, Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been applied, allowing for a more comprehensive analysis considering direct and indirect links between performance indicators in data processing, permitting a more detailed analysis adjusted to the match [25,27,[43][44][45][46][47]. In volleyball, research using SNA and Eigenvector Centrality indicate the highest values in complex I for attacks executed at the ends of the net, especially in zones 4 and 2 [4,9], with second attack tempo [4,31], powerful attack [3,31] against simple block or broken double block [9,10], defended attack or attack point [10,31], and middle-blocker centered in zone 3 in the initial blocking condition [4].…”