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Zone 4Zone 3

She may not attack, may not block, may not serve in rotation. She touches the ball more than anyone.

Zone 2

A net, antenna and post against sports-hall lighting, close

A player in a contrasting shirt receiving low in a back-court position

Zones 5 + 6 · the libero’s half

Zone 1 · serves from here

The jump serve made first contact the hardest thing on the court, so the game invented a specialist to receive it — and put her in a shirt that must contrast with her own team, so the referee can police the rule in real time.

Read the libero guide

Photo: Baldwin Wallace Yellow Jackets Volleyball · Wikimedia Commons

The signature rule · section 03

Legal at the whistle. After that, anywhere.

Six players must be in a legal order at the moment of service — who is in front of whom, who serves next. The instant the ball is struck they run to the job they actually do. That is the whole reason the game looks chaotic and is not.

Legal at the whistle, in full

Section 01 · scoring

Every serve became a point

Under the old side-out system only the serving team could score, and a set could stall for an hour. Rally point scoring, ratified in 1999, put a point on every rally. A match that could run four hours started fitting a broadcast slot — and squads were rebuilt around a predictable clock.

25Points · sets one to four
two clear

15Points · deciding set
two clear

Read the scoring guide

A scoreboard and clock above an empty indoor court — The room the rule changedUnder the old scoring this board could stand still for ten minutes at a time.

Supported by

Leagues, clubs, and governing bodies we follow the game through.

Section 04 · where the game is played

The best players are not where you think they are

01The summer the world sees

Volleyball players in yellow and green jerseys stand arm-in-arm facing the crowd before a match — Sixteen teams, rotating hosts, one production look: the format most viewers meet first.

The Nations League, and the summer the world sees

The FIVB's annual competition is the format most viewers encounter, and it is a recent invention with a commercial structure behind it.

02The college game

A university sports hall with retractable seating extended — Three divisions, a 64-team Division I women’s field, and one 92,003-seat outlier.

The NCAA, three divisions and a stadium record

American college volleyball has a scale and an attendance record that surprises people who only watch the international game.

03The winter league

A club arena interior with sponsor-free walls and banked seats — October to April, twice a week, in halls like this one — where the professional year actually sits.

The clubs, where the season actually happens

Italy, Poland and Turkey run the leagues most of the world's best players spend most of the year in.

Four sections, fifteen guides

Where everything lives

Every serve became a point

Scoring, and what it did to the game.

She may not attack, may not block, may not serve

The specialist the jump serve created.

Legal at the whistle, then anywhere

Six players and one legal order.

The best players are not where you think

Nations League, NCAA, and the club season.

The archive

Every guide on the site, in one list.

All fifteen →

Eleven frames, one subject

The rooms these rules are kept in

An indoor court from directly above showing player positions — The order is obvious for exactly one instant.

Court line markings photographed close on a wooden floor — The lines decide the fault.

A tactics board with magnetic markers on a court-shaped grid — How many setters decides how many attackers.

A ball in flight above an indoor court with the net in the foreground — Once the serve became an attack, first contact became the hardest skill.

A volleyball resting against the base of a net post — Since 2000 a serve that clips the tape stays live.

A referee's stand seen from behind above the net — Most block touches are judged on sound.

Two contrasting team shirts hanging in a changing room — Same cut, same length, different colour.

An empty bench and substitution board beside a court — A substitution column that never fills.

A printed record board on a sports hall wall — A record board holds only what can be checked.

And supported by

The remaining six. Each one carries a line of its own, in its own words.

A beach volleyball court at low sun with the sand freshly raked

One code over · section 04

Beach is a different sport

Two players, no rotation, no substitutions and a surface that punishes a different body — the codes share a name and little else.

Players per side: 6 indoors
2 on sand
Set target: 25 indoors
21 on sand
Substitutions: Yes indoors
None on sand

Photo: Beach volleyball-Huntington Beach-California 3 · Wikimedia Commons