Triples tournament 3v3

The court is split down its length, giving you two narrow courts and two games running at the same time. Three against three means everybody touches the ball every rally: there is nowhere to hide. After every round you mix the teams again, so nobody spends half an hour playing with the same partners.

10 players 9 phases ± 25 min 4 balls, full court halved lengthwise, two lines or marker cones for the divide down the middle From U15 upwards, with twelve to eighteen players

Phase 1 of 9The court is halved lengthwise; the next pair waits on the other half

Team A and the players waiting Team B Equipment Ball

This animation comes straight out of the Koach app. In the app you play it at your own pace and the positions carry your players' real names.

Open in the app

How the drill runs

What you are training

The court is halved lengthwise; 3v3 mini matches, mix after every round. Lots of ball contacts.

Plenty of ball contacts: with three players you touch the ball almost twice every rally.
The narrow court forces you to play up and down the court instead of escaping sideways.
Sorting out the roles yourselves — who passes, who sets and who attacks changes every rally.

Coaching points

Play every ball three times, even when one contact would get it over.

That is the classic triples rule and the reason the drill works: without that agreement half the rallies end with a ball tipped straight back over and you train nothing at all.

Rallies to five points, then mix.

Short games keep the gap between strong and weak teams small. A game to 25 with three players usually turns into a war of attrition run by one dominant player.

The middle player sets, even if he is not a setter.

In a group of three there is no fixed build-up. Leaving the second ball to whoever is closest teaches every player that they have to be able to hand set a playable ball.

Substitutions go around the back, not through the court.

There is another game going on right next to you. One player cutting straight across interrupts two rallies at once.

Variations

Easier: The first ball may be caught and thrown back, and the rally starts with an underhand serve from the three-meter line.
Harder: The third ball has to be an attack, not a high ball over. Or: the attack only counts if it comes from above the net.
With eighteen players: Six teams of three: two games at once and two teams waiting who come in after every round. Put the mixing order on paper beforehand.
As a game: A tournament with five-minute rounds. Winners move up a court, losers move down a court, and after every round everybody gets a new teammate. Whoever has won the most rounds after six rounds wins.

Volleyball drills

4 players · 6 phases SafeVolley base round Warm-up 3 players · 5 phases Shoulder activation with band Warm-up 2 players · 6 phases Dynamic movement patterns Warm-up 5 players · 5 phases Core plank with rotation Warm-up

Read on in the knowledge base: keeping twenty players busy on one court · more ball contacts per player · why game-like drills transfer better