Fabrizio Castori

Fabrizio Castori (born 11 July 1954) is an Italian football coach, currently in charge of Serie B club Südtirol.

Castori was born in San Severino Marche but grew up in Tolentino. He started his coaching career in 1980 at the age of 26 as head coach of the Seconda Categoria team Belfortese from Belforte del Chienti. Initially a boss for amateur teams, having spent three seasons in Seconda Categoria (second-lowest division in Italian football) and three others in Prima Categoria, he led a Promozione team, Cerreto, to reach Serie D in 1990 (there was no Eccellenza division at that time). From 1992 to 1998 Castori coached Eccellenza team Tolentino leading them to Serie C2. In 1998-1999, he won a Serie D league and a Scudetto Dilettanti with Lanciano. After a poor Serie C1 season with Castel di Sangro, he returned to Lanciano in 2000 and immediately won the Serie C2 league. He stayed at Lanciano until 2003.

In the summer of 2003, he was appointed head coach of Serie C1 team Cesena. In his first season, he led Cesena to win the promotion playoffs and the Coppa Italia Serie C; this however was obscured by a 3-year ban on him after having been the protagonist of a riot during the return leg of the promotion playoff finals against Lumezzane. The ban was successively reduced to 2 years following a pardon request by Castori himself; during this time, Castori was unable to serve as head coach but, despite this, he was confirmed as Cesena's boss, with assistant manager Massimo Gadda serving at his place on the dugout until 23 January 2006.

On 11 November 2007, following a 1–4 loss to Rimini in a regional derby and only seven points gained in the first fourteen matches, Castori was dismissed by Cesena, after four seasons at the helm of the bianconeri, but was reinstated at his managing role only three months later following Giovanni Vavassori's dismissal on 25 February 2008; his comeback at Cesena proved however to be unsuccessful, as the bianconeri were relegated to Serie C1 at the end of the season.

Castori served the 2008–09 season as head coach of the newly promoted Serie B team Salernitana. He was successively sacked later in December, to be replaced by Bortolo Mutti, and then re-called on February, only to be dismissed again on April and replaced by Fabio Brini, who guided the club to safety.

He was then appointed in June 2009 as the new head coach of Piacenza for the upcoming 2009–10 Serie B season, but was dismissed in November due to poor results.

On 3 November 2010 he returned into management as head coach of Serie B relegation-threatened club Ascoli. On 2 November 2011 he was sacked because of bad results. Ascoli is currently last in Serie B.

Since 12 June 2012, he has been the new head coach of Varese in Serie B.