In this episode, Coach Yas is joined by Justinas Gasiūnas for a fascinating conversation exploring coaching, goalkeeping and a career that has taken him from Lithuania to England and across professional football in Europe.

Justinas shares the story of leaving Lithuania after finishing his playing career and arriving in London with limited English, eventually working in a coffee shop while trying to find his first opportunities within football. What initially felt like one of the worst decisions of his life would eventually become one of the most important.

From volunteering in London parks, opportunities followed at Brentford and Brighton before his journey took him into senior football across Europe and eventually to Saba in Azerbaijan.

The conversation moves beyond Justinas’ career journey into a detailed exploration of how his thinking around goalkeeping has evolved, challenging traditional drill-based approaches and asking whether the practices we have always used actually reflect what goalkeepers experience in the game.

💡 Key Talking Points

• Leaving Lithuania and starting again in England with limited English and very few contacts.

• Going from professional footballer to working in a coffee shop while trying to break into coaching.

• Why difficult decisions sometimes only make sense when we look back on them.

• The relationship between luck, opportunity and consistently putting yourself in the right environments.

• Volunteering in grassroots football and the opportunity that eventually led to Brentford.

• The influence demanding environments can have on developing coaches.

• How Justinas’ approach to goalkeeping has changed throughout his career.

• Why the quality of repetitions may matter more than simply accumulating repetitions.

• Moving away from practices because “that is how goalkeepers have always trained.”

• Designing training around the information, pictures and problems goalkeepers actually experience within matches.

• Why anticipation and reading the game are central to effective goalkeeping.

• Developing goalkeeper decision-making within realistic contexts.

• The relationship between specialist goalkeeping work and integrated team practice.

• Why 11v11 might be the most representative practice — but does not always provide enough of the specific problems a goalkeeper needs.

• Breaking the game into smaller scenarios without removing the context that gives those actions meaning.

• The changing role of the goalkeeper coach within modern football.

• Whether specialist coaches risk becoming generalists by continually taking responsibility for more areas of the game.

• Why post-match analysis may sometimes benefit from allowing emotion to settle before reviewing performance.

One of the strongest messages from the conversation is the importance of continually questioning the practices we inherit.

Just because something has traditionally been part of goalkeeper training does not necessarily mean it is the best way to prepare goalkeepers for the game.

Justinas challenges coaches to keep asking:

What is the game actually asking the player to do — and does our practice genuinely prepare them for it?

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.

Continue the Conversation: The TCN Coaching Collective

Looking for a space to reflect on your coaching, work through challenges and learn alongside other coaches?

The TCN Coaching Collective brings coaches together for a monthly 90-minute online conversation facilitated by Coach Yas. Bring a real challenge from your coaching, explore it through questions and shared experiences, and identify practical next steps for your own environment.

You’ll also have access to our WhatsApp community to stay connected, share resources and continue discussions between sessions.

Whether you’re navigating a difficult coaching situation, questioning your approach or looking for fresh perspectives, you’re welcome to join us.

📩 To find out more or enquire about joining, email info@thecoachesnetwork.co.uk with “Coaching Collective” in the subject line.

The Coaches Network Podcast

Conversations that inform, challenge and inspire coaches.

Hosted by Coach Yas.

In this episode, Coach Yas is joined by Imran Hamid for a conversation exploring his journey from grassroots football in South West London to coaching within the academy at Manchester United.

Imran reflects on the people, environments and experiences that shaped him as a young coach, from seeing coaches who looked like him growing up, to volunteering in grassroots football, travelling across London for opportunities and continually putting himself in environments where he could learn, experiment and make mistakes.

The conversation explores what it really means to develop players and people, the importance of understanding the individual behind the player, and why coaching cannot simply be reduced to what happens on the grass.

Imran also shares insight into his experiences at Manchester United, where developing technically confident, creative and courageous players was underpinned by an environment that encouraged players to take risks, express themselves and learn through mistakes.

💡 Key Talking Points

• How role models shaped Imran’s belief that coaching could become a career.

• Why grassroots football provides such an important learning environment for young coaches.

• The value of volunteering, travelling and putting yourself into different coaching environments.

• Why coaches need opportunities to experiment, make mistakes and discover what works for them.

• The importance of developing the person, not simply the footballer.

• Why understanding a player’s background and experiences can change the way we support them.

• The difference between developing players across grassroots, academy and elite environments.

• Why technical development should give players the tools to solve problems rather than simply reproduce movements.

• Creating environments where players feel able to take risks, make mistakes and go again.

• Developing brave, confident and expressive players.

• Why psychological and social development cannot be separated from technical development.

• The importance of understanding context rather than simply copying what successful academies do.

• Why different experiences can make coaches more adaptable and better able to connect with players.

• The realities of navigating opportunities within professional football.

• Why coaches should continue developing themselves beyond coaching qualifications and what happens on the pitch.

One of the strongest messages from the conversation is that becoming a better coach is not simply about collecting qualifications or reaching the next club.

It is about accumulating meaningful experiences, understanding people, remaining willing to learn and continuing to develop yourself even when the pathway does not unfold exactly as you imagined.

Imran leaves coaches with an important reminder:

Aim high. Keep learning. Develop yourself holistically… and don’t allow the obstacles in front of you to decide how far you can go.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.

Continue the Conversation: The TCN Coaching Collective

Looking for a space to reflect on your coaching, work through challenges and learn alongside other coaches?

The TCN Coaching Collective brings coaches together for a monthly 90-minute online conversation facilitated by Coach Yas. Bring a real challenge from your coaching, explore it through questions and shared experiences, and identify practical next steps for your own environment.

You’ll also have access to our WhatsApp community to stay connected, share resources and continue discussions between sessions.

Whether you’re navigating a difficult coaching situation, questioning your approach or looking for fresh perspectives, you’re welcome to join us.

📩 To find out more or enquire about joining, email info@thecoachesnetwork.co.uk with “Coaching Collective” in the subject line.

The Coaches Network Podcast

Conversations that inform, challenge and inspire coaches.

Hosted by Coach Yas.

In this episode, Coach Yas is joined by Mark O’Sullivan for a wide-ranging conversation exploring ecological dynamics, learning, expertise and what all of this actually means for coaches working in the real world.

Mark describes himself as a “recovered expert” and throughout the conversation challenges some of the assumptions that can sit underneath traditional ideas of coaching, coach education and player development. Rather than presenting ecological dynamics as another methodology to simply copy, the discussion explores it as a lens through which coaches can better understand learning, behaviour, skill and the environments they create.

The conversation moves beyond terminology and theory into the practical realities of coaching: what we notice, what we choose to intervene on, how players learn, how context shapes behaviour and why becoming a better observer may be one of the most important things a coach can develop.

💡 Key Talking Points

• Why Mark describes himself as a “recovered expert”.

• Ecological dynamics as a way of understanding learning rather than a coaching recipe.

• Why there is no simple copy-and-paste approach to coaching.

• The importance of context when trying to understand skill and behaviour.

• What functional skill actually means in practice.

• Why coaches may need to become better observers before becoming better interveners.

• How perception, action and the environment interact during learning.

• The limitations of breaking learning down into isolated parts.

• Why player exploration can be an important part of development.

• The tension between nonlinear learning and the linear structures often found within coach education.

• How coach education can sometimes simplify complex ideas in order to make them teachable.

• The difference between knowing about coaching and actually being able to coach.

• Why expertise should not necessarily be viewed as arriving at a final destination.

• The value of curiosity, experimentation and remaining open to having your thinking challenged.

One of the strongest messages from the conversation is that good coaching is not simply about finding the right practice, the right intervention or the right answer. It is about developing the capacity to observe, interpret and respond to what is happening in front of you.

Mark leaves coaches with a simple but powerful challenge:

Be curious. Practise observing. Allow your players to explore… and allow yourself to explore.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.

The Coaches Network Podcast

Conversations that inform, challenge and inspire coaches.

Hosted by Coach Yas.