Serse Cosmi (born 5 May 1958) is an Italian football coach, most recently in charge of Rijeka. Career Early career Cosmi was born in 1958 in Ponte San Giovanni, a Perugia frazione. His father, a cycling fan, called him Serse after Fausto Coppi's brother, a cyclist himself, who died following a fall during a sprint. He worked nine years as primary school teacher, and played amateur football during his freetime for local teams such as Deruta, Cannara, Spello and Pontevecchio, in the role of midfielder. He started a coaching career in the late 1980s in Ellera, as under-18 youth team coach. His debut as first team coach came in 1990, when he was appointed to coach Pontevecchio, a small amateur team from his native town of Ponte San Giovanni. Cosmi brought it on from the Prima Categoria (fourth level of amateur leagues in Italy) to Serie D (the top one) in just five years. Successively, he joined Arezzo, which he led from Serie D to Serie C1 in five extremely positive years. Perugia After being noted by Luciano Gaucci, in 2000 Cosmi was surprisingly appointed head coach of Perugia, in the Serie A. He guided the team for four consecutive years, winning a UEFA Intertoto Cup, showing valid coaching abilities and launching several players, including 2006 FIFA World Cup winner Marco Materazzi (who reached a career high of 12 goals in a single season under Cosmi's tenure), then-unknown Japanese Hidetoshi Nakata, Fabrizio Miccoli, Fabio Grosso and Fabio Liverani. Cosmi's period at Perugia would last four years, during which he led the fringe Umbrian club to victory in the 2003 UEFA Intertoto Cup. Genoa and Udinese In 2004 Cosmi left Perugia, after the team went relegated at the end of the season, and joined Genoa of Serie B, with the clear goal to bring the rossoblu back to Serie A. At the end of the 2004–05 season, Cosmi managed to win the league and guide his team to Serie A, but he successively left because of discords with club chairman Enrico Preziosi, before the relegation of Genoa itself to Serie C1 because of match frauds. After his short, but successful, experience with Genoa, Cosmi was signed as new coach of Udinese, in order to replace Luciano Spalletti, who gained the qualification to the preliminary rounds of Champions' League the previous season. But it was Cosmi who led the team on the