Coaching Solutions: Lineup Considerations to Prioritize Winning vs Experiment with Different Lineups

Many aspects of coaching are more of an artform than a science. Lineup decisions, especially early in the season, certainly fall into that category. There are many factors that need to be balanced, so coaches may want to spend some time before the season starts identifying their priorities.

Let’s look at considerations for lineup decisions early in the season:

Prioritizing Winning

One of the most obvious factors that coaches need to balance is how often their primary objective is to win. While winning can sometimes be very important, a concept that is often neglected is when winning should not be the primary objective.

During our coaches meeting at the beginning of the season, we explain to our newer coaches that all matches are not weighted equally.

Matches against teams in your age group are more important to win than matches against teams that are older than your team.
Matches against teams in your age group and that will likely end up in your division at the larger events, especially nationals, are exponentially more important when it comes to seeding for those events. Those are matches that you should likely be trying to win.
If you have an open level team, winning matches on seeding days of power leagues can also be incredibly important so that when the league dates kick off, you’re facing off against other open level teams that will help prepare you for what you will see at the larger and more important events later in the season.
Outside of the types of matches mentioned above, winning can sometimes be balanced with other priorities. While some matches are important to win and others are not, there are some that fall into a middle category. Typically there will be some matches on day one of a large, three day event that are important to win, but safe enough to consider secondary priorities. For open level teams in that situation, rotating lineups also makes scouting your team much more difficult. Imagine scouting an opponent that your team is about to face in a challenge match and they roll out three different line-ups in three different sets. Now try to draw up a game plan to beat them.

Experimenting with Different Lineups

As winning becomes less vital, rotating your lineups can have multiple advantages. Before the first events of the competition season, teams have likely been practicing for a month or more. While you as a coach are learning a ton of information about your team in the practice gym, there are some things that can only be learned in live match play.

It is possible that your best primary passer in practice crumbles on the main stage of a tournament.
It is equally possible that a player who seems disinterested in practice absolutely thrives in a more competitive environment. Would it be ideal if every player practiced the same way that they competed? Of course. But recognizing when that might not be the case is important information for a coach to have, and information that they might not learn if they stick with the same starting line up for an entire weekend based on what they’ve seen in the practice gym.
Throwing in a player from the end of your bench to be a serving sub on match point could be seen as setting them up to fail, or it could be seen as giving them a chance to do something exceptional. While you might not be willing to take that risk on day three of a national tournament, there can be good reasons to try it out on day one of the first event of the season.

That brings us back to where coaching becomes more of an art form with few concrete right or wrong answers.

Another priority is keeping your team fresh for an extended season that can include 60-80 matches over 5-6 months. If you stick with one line-up for an extended period of time, you risk physical burn-out for your ‘starters’ and emotional burn-out for your ‘bench.’ This is true for the duration of the season, but it is especially important to remember on day one.

Practicing different lineups in real matches will also help prepare your team for when there is an inevitable injury, sickness, or scheduling conflict. If you’ve never run a 5-1 until one of your setters sprains an ankle at a major event, your team will have a much harder time adapting. If your dominant point scorer is taking the high-pressure swing on match point all season long, your second or third option may not have the level of confidence that you’d like when the game is in their hands because option number one is out with the flu.

Last, but not least, when you have the freedom to mess around with different lineups because winning is not all that important, it gives you the opportunity to have a little fun in what can be a long and sometimes draining season. Take your middle that will never see the back row at nationals and make her the libero for one random match at the beginning of the season. Not only will she be more prepared if your libero goes down with a concussion and you have no subs left available, but you might also find that the team rallies around her and you pull out the win anyways simply because the team is having fun.

In the end, the key to successful coaching lies in knowing when to prioritize winning and when to embrace the flexibility that comes with experimenting with different lineups. By carefully balancing these priorities, coaches can create a team environment that fosters growth, resilience, and camaraderie. While the ultimate goal is to prepare players for the most important matches of the season, the journey itself—complete with its ups and downs, risks and rewards—offers invaluable lessons. The art of coaching is about making those strategic decisions that not only build a team’s skillset but also its confidence, character, and love for the game. The best coaches understand that sometimes the greatest wins come from the unexpected moments that occur when the pressure is off and the players are allowed to simply play and enjoy the sport.

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