Guidetti's rules, VNL time-outs, Bella's hammer...

And a sprinkle of Stanford.

February 05, 2023

Welcome to The VolleyBrains Weekly.  This morning I had to show my son who's still the boss in NBA2K around here. He had his teachable moment, now it's time for yours. 😅

Let's get our volleyball on. 

Here's what we've got this week

  • Giovanni Guidetti goes Fight Club.

  • John Speraw and Nikola Grbic's Time-outs

  • Wołosz and Haak are CRUSHING IT!

  • This goes on Kevin Hambly's billboard

For the smoothest 'viewing' experience press the 'read online' link at the top right of this email. Over there all clips will play in your browser without redirecting.👍

The only rule is, there are no rules.

One of the questions we always ask the coaches we interview is how they go about team management and organization.

Some college coaches get 4+ new players on their team every season. Pro club coaches could get an entirely new roster. How do they manage these changes. Do they immediately start imposing fixed rules to handle the day-to-day?

Here is what Giovanni Guidetti shared with us about all that.

What is being said in those time-outs?

Effective communication during a timeout is reached by being:

  • Concise; time is very limited, use it wisely

  • Clear; fuzzy messaging destroys confidence

  • Considerate; 'putting yourself in the shoes of your players'

We could throw in more 'C-words' here...completeness, concreteness, etc.

But I think we can agree that hitting the first 3 would be considered a win.

Below you can find the transcribed time-outs from the 2022 VNL Semifinal between Poland and Team USA.

For some context: 

Poland was trailing large parts of this match. USA's serving game became lethal from set 2 onwards. During set 3 Team USA managed to serve 8!! aces.

Coach Speraw kept it cool and organized. Coach Grbic had to fire up his troops a bit more. 

More VNL time-outs and insights in our free article right here.

Enjoy!

We need a name for this combo asap.

Last weekend we enjoyed the finals of the Coppa Italia. Italy's Cup tournament. 

Imoco Conegliano won against Vero Volley Monza. 3 sets to 0. The MVP was an ever-outstanding Isabella Haak. And that gets us to this topic.

Feel free to debate with me if you want (reply to this email, if you dare), but this combo between Wołosz and Haak is developing into the play/combo of the year.

Putting a free ball over against Conegliano these days with their setter in rotation 5 or 6 is looking extremely automatic. Probably the most lethal play in modern-day volleyball.

This clip isn't even the best example of this play. The ball already had gone 5 times over the net in this one.😓

Couldn't resist this GIF. Just couldn't. 🫡

Kevin Hambly's message to every athlete out there.

The next coaches Masterclass on volleybrains.com will be launched next weekend.

We'll be featuring Stanford's head coach Kevin Hambly. As a sneak peek, this unedited clip of Kevin answering:

"If we would get you a hypothetical billboard at the side of a highway where every volleyball player in the world drives by. What would that message be?"

If you like this newsletter, please forward to other coaches and players. It only takes 10 seconds. Producing the content and writing this takes me 3-4 hours every newsletter. Your support and help make a huge difference! Can't thank you enough! ❤️ 

That's a wrap. Have a great week!

Matias

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