DW: Your team, Augsburg, are currently sitting fourth on the Bundesliga table. How much of the current situation was planned or even envisaged?

Stefan Reuter: Well, the fact things are going so well and we're so high up in the table is a dream. Our goal, our plan is to make Augsburg a stable Bundesliga team. There will be one or two setbacks, we might even need to drop down to the second division, but we want to make sure we can be a stable team. Our ambition was to be in the top 25 teams in Germany.

The goal now is to be at least in the top 21 teams, so that we can instantly be pushing for promotion again. We want to establish FC Augsburg and every further year we spend in the top flight does us good. We have a backlog. We have to invest safely in the infrastructure and that's always possible, to a certain extent, if you stay in the top flight.

What have you learned about yourself and your job during the last two years at Augsburg?

The most important thing is never to relax. That's hard because it would be nice to enjoy situations like this more, but the little things make such a big difference. Sometimes it's enough to seal a win. You just can't relax and you have to approach situations with a lot of joy and enthusiasm, that's key.

Things are going well for you at the moment, but the same can't be said for an old club of yours, Dortmund. Do you know why? What are the areas that you can have an influence on?

I mentioned earlier that the little things were key; a lot of it comes from there. That's hard to realize for those on the outside. There are a few World Cup winners at Dortmund who probably needed a different preseason after such a highlight. Then they had a number of injuries, then they lost a few players and the team had to find itself and its rhythm again. That's a lot to take on and then the results didn't come and confidence was lost.

It's a phase that they will have to get through. They'll have to keep working hard and focus on staying together so they can be rewarded at the end of it. The focus has to be on the performance, not the result. Focus on your performance and the result will follow.

During his active career Stefan Reuter won just about everything there is to win in international football: a World Cup in 1990, a European Championship in 1996 and the Champions League in 1997 with Borussia Dortmund. He has been commercial manager of FC Augsburg since 2012.