The set break in your volleyball app: the numbers and your lineup for the next set
The set is over. Your players come to the side, you have a few minutes, and in those few minutes you have to work out what went wrong, who is on court next and who starts serving. That is exactly when you have no time to go hunting through screens. So in Koach the set break card is simply there the moment the set is decided: the numbers from the set just played, the lineup for the next one, and the button that starts it.
The moment you have the most to decide
Between two sets lies the only break in which you have both time and something you can still change. A time-out is short and about one thing. A set break is longer, your whole team is standing around you, and the set to come starts with a clean slate and with a lineup you get to choose. How long that break lasts and what the rules allow in that time is in how long the break between sets is; this article is about what happens on your screen.
The trap is filling those minutes with an impression instead of with what actually happened. "We passed badly" is almost always true and almost never usable. Whether the set fell apart on service errors, on attacking errors or on an opponent who simply hit well, you only know once you see it written down. And looking it up during the break does not work: then you are standing there scrolling on your phone while your team waits.
The card appears by itself the moment the set is over
As soon as the score is a set win — on the default setting, 25 points with two clear — the set break card slides up. You do not have to tap anything for it and you do not have to work out how to open it. At the top it says which set it was, whether it was won or lost, and the final score: Set 2 · Set won · 25-22.
Worth knowing: this is not an extra step in your scoring. The button at the bottom of the card — Start set 3 — does exactly what the Next set button in the bar above the scoreboard used to do. So it is still one tap to open the next set; you just get information before you give it.
Dismiss the card, with the cross or by tapping beside it, and nothing happens to the match. The set is not closed off, the score stays where it is. That is deliberate: a misplaced tap in a noisy hall must never end a set. Above the scoreboard the dark bar with Next set stays put, and that opens the card again. The card belongs to the match screen, so it never slides over your dashboard or calendar if you look something else up during the break.
The numbers from the set just played
From the second set break onwards, the top of the card carries a row with every set score in this match, with the set just played highlighted. That way you can see at a glance whether you are 2-0 up or it is 1-1, without reaching for your match report. How those set scores build up during the match and where they end up afterwards is in keeping track of set scores and set wins.
Below that come two small blocks, both about the set that has just been played and nothing else — not about the whole match. That is precisely what you need in a set break: the set you have just watched happen, not the average across the evening.
- Points per type. Attack, block, serve and the points you got from an opponent error. Each line has a bar, a percentage and a number of points. Types that did not occur are left out, so you never get a row of zeroes.
- Fault distribution. Service error, attacking error, poor pass, late to the ball, net fault and other — sorted by size, so whatever cost the most is at the top. If no faults were recorded the block simply drops away; if nothing at all was logged over the whole set, it says No faults.
These numbers come from the same source as the match report you read back an hour later. So what you see in the set break is still there afterwards. That sounds obvious, but it is the reason you dare to base a decision on it: you do not have to check whether the screen you get later will contradict the screen you have now.
Key point: pick one thing out of the fault distribution and name it. Nobody remembers four points for improvement delivered in two minutes; the top line of the fault distribution they do.
What you do with that one line depends on the kind of fault. Five service errors in a set is an instruction ("serve in, put the pressure on number four"), seven poor passes is more of an adjustment to who receives serve where. How you make that kind of call from the sideline — and when you should change nothing at all — is covered in more detail in match coaching: time-outs, substitutions and your role on the sideline.
The lineup for the next set
Under the numbers sits the block Lineup for set 3. There you see two things. Along the top a row of your saved lineups as buttons, with the one currently queued up highlighted. Below that a grid of six boxes in the order of the court: 4, 3 and 2 along the top, so at the net, with 5, 6 and 1 underneath. Each box shows the position number and the shirt number with the first name of the player who starts there. A spot with nobody in it says empty.
You do not have to do anything here. Choose nothing and the next set starts with the same six as the last one, exactly as it always did. Tap a saved lineup and the app takes it as the starting lineup for the coming set — including the setter and the libero you recorded with that lineup. How to set up lineups so they are waiting here when you need them is in saving and reusing lineups.
One thing that often causes confusion: picking a different starting lineup at the beginning of a set is not a substitution. So it does not use up any of your allowed substitutions, and the app does not record it as one either. Substituting only starts once the set is running, through the substitution card at the scoreboard.
If you have not saved any lineups yet, instead of the row of buttons there is a line telling you that you can simply substitute once the set is under way. So the block does not disappear, and no obligation is created: it is there for the coach who already had his lineup ready.
Who serves first — and the toss for the deciding set
At the bottom, one sentence says who starts the next set serving: We serve first or Opponent serving. The app works that out itself — whoever started the previous set receives the next one — so you do not have to count back to whose turn it is. Underneath it the button Start set 3, and that is you done.
Before the deciding set it goes differently. There a new toss is held, so the app cannot guess it. Instead of the sentence with the start button you get two buttons side by side, under the heading Deciding set — new toss: Us and Opponent serving. You tap whatever the toss produced, and that starts the set. Dismiss the card without choosing and the set does not start yet: the bar with Next set stays where it is and brings you back to the same two buttons. What else changes in a deciding set — among other things that it is played to fifteen, and when you change ends — is in live scoring at two sets all.
When the match is already decided
If your team won the set that decided the match — or lost it — the card looks different. The lineup block disappears, because there is no next set coming, and instead of the start button it says End match. The numbers from the last set do stay, so you can still look at them before you wrap up. The app then asks you to confirm, because finishing locks in the result and the statistics.
That is also the reason you never have to worry halfway through about whether you are counting correctly: as long as you do not finish, the match stays live and you can still go back within the running set with Undo. Across a set boundary that deliberately does not work, otherwise you could reverse a set that has just been closed off while it is already in the set scores.
The scorer on the bench gets this card too
If you hand the counting to a player or a parent on the bench, that person sits in their own simplified scoring screen on their own phone. There too a set break card appears after every set: the set number, the final score of that set and the same points and fault distribution you see. The card stays for as long as the new set is still at 0-0 and disappears by itself at the first point — no button, no extra step for someone who only wants to keep score.
What the scorer does not get is the lineup block. That choice belongs to you: the scorer does not know your lineups and does not need to be touching them. He cannot fill in the toss for the deciding set either; if an authorised scorer closes out that set, the app applies the alternating rule and you adjust it if need be as soon as you are watching along again. How you grant and withdraw that authorisation is in authorising a player to keep score.
The effect of all of it is small and dull, and that is exactly the intention. You walk over to your team with one sentence about what went wrong, you know who is on court next and who starts serving, and you tap Start set 3 the moment the referee whistles. No searching, no scrolling, and no set starting while you are still in the wrong screen.
Frequently asked questions
My phone died during the set break — have I lost everything?
No. The match stays live as long as you have not finished it, so after reopening the app the score is still there. If you come back to the match screen while the set is still showing as decided, the set break card appears again by itself. A lineup you had already tapped for the next set has been kept as well.
We play best of three — does the card still get it right?
Yes. The app looks at the match format you chose at the start. Playing best of three makes the third set the deciding one: there you get the two toss buttons instead of the ordinary start button, and that set goes to fifteen points. Playing best of five, the same thing happens before the fifth set.
I tapped the wrong saved lineup — can that be undone?
Just tap a different lineup and it takes the place of the previous one. In the grid of six boxes underneath you can see straight away who starts where, so you notice before the set is running. It uses up no substitutions. If the six you want is not saved as a lineup, start the set and substitute once it is under way.
Somebody was counting along on a second device and already started the set — why do I not see the card?
If the set has already been closed off on another device, the set number no longer matches what the card would show. The card then closes itself, so that you never get the numbers of one set under the heading of another. You do not lose the numbers themselves: they are in the match report per set once the match is over.
