Makelele: Zlatan has the right ingredients

Chelsea last crossed paths with Paris Saint-Germain in 2004, when a star-studded Blues line-up took on a PSG team operating with far more meagre resources. The sides drew 0-0 at Stamford Bridge, but it was the comfortable 3-0 success for the English outfit in France a few months previously that really caught the eye.

Claude Makelele reigned supreme in midfield for Chelsea that night, yet the former French international will be desperate for a different outcome when the two clubs lock horns again in this evening's UEFA Champions League quarter-final opener. Makelele now serves as an assistant to PSG coach Laurent Blanc, having ended his playing days while at the Parc des Princes in 2011, just as Les Rouge et Bleu were about to become a genuine European force.

In his pomp, Makelele was the archetypal holding player, a model held up for his positioning, ball-winning skills and reliability as a conveyor belt between defence and attack. FIFA.com met up with the man capped 71 times by France at the Annual Match against Poverty last month, where he was more than willing to discuss the finer points of his old midfield role and his modern successors, plus his switch to coaching, PSG's exciting new era, Les Bleus and his involvement in charity activities.

FIFA.com: PSG have an exceptional player in their ranks in Zlatan Ibrahimovic. You yourself played with various world-class talents, but have you been surprised by the quality of his performances?
Claude Makelele: No, I'm not surprised by what Zlatan is doing at the moment. He's a competitor and a great player who wants to win titles. He always wants to improve; he wants to surpass what he achieved at other great clubs and he's doing everything to make that happen. You don't need to say anything to a player like that – he's the one who carries the others along with him, leading them to new heights. Sometimes you have to speak to certain players to inject a little confidence, but Ibrahimovic doesn't need that. He has all the right ingredients already.

How are you finding life in the dugout, so soon after being involved in games like this as a player?
From the bench, I can see what's happening quicker. I'm able to predict what will happen – I know in advance. I went through it all as a player thousands of times, and that's given me an acute sense of how a situation will turn out. I can feel what's about to happen on the pitch. When I was a player, I couldn't really explain it; I just 'lived' the moment. Now, it's my role to explain, analyse and, above all, communicate.