Marco Verratti pauses as he considers Paris Saint-Germain’s situation before the second leg of the last-16 Champions League tie at Chelsea on Wednesday. PSG are 2-1 up and under pressure to progress deeper into the tournament after three consecutive exits in the quarter-finals. The gameplan seems clear: PSG, says one of the best young midfielders in the world, must attack from the outset and go for an early goal.

The Italy international describes the first leg result as “all right”. Nothing more, nothing less. “We confirmed we are a good team but there are things we could have done better,” he says. “We could have put Chelsea in more trouble. We have to go to London and play our football, if we do anything else we’ll be in trouble.

“We need to keep possession, attack and go for an early goal. These are the games that we wait for all season. Being eliminated in the Champions League would be a bit of a disaster.”

PSG will try to keep the ball as much as they did in Paris – 65% – but is that a realistic target at Stamford Bridge? “Yes, because that’s our style of playing, we like to play football,” Verratti says. “Either way we will have to show more personality than in the first leg, because we’re playing at Stamford Bridge, which is always different from playing at home. But we need to play the same kind of football, yes.”

Verratti, despite being only 23 years old, has been at the club for three-and-a-half years and has a key role in Laurent Blanc’s ambition to always dominate possession. Along with his fellow midfielder Thiago Motta he spends more time with the ball at his feet than any other player in Ligue 1. He has improved season by season under the guidance of Carlo Ancelotti and now Blanc but also by watching his favourite players, one of whom plays for Chelsea.

Marco Verratti playing for Pescara in 2010. He joined PSG two years later from the Serie B side, bypassing the giants of Italian football in the process. Photograph: Giuseppe Bellini/Getty Images

“I watch a lot of football. If I was to pick a player that I identify with in this Chelsea team it would be Cesc Fàbregas. He makes you see what the game is about, he breathes football and you can tell by his way of playing how much he loves it. He was already a great player when I just got started, so I’ve watched him a lot. He’s an example who I’ve tried to learn from.”

You would think that admiring the elegance of Fàbregas would rule out appreciating the brutality of another Chelsea player, namely Diego Costa. But Verratti is a fan, or just polite – or perhaps both. “I prefer entertaining football but having a personality like Costa in your team is always good. He uses warfare to win the games but I know him, he’s a good guy who transforms when he comes on the pitch,” says Verratti just as David Luiz stumbles into the room, yells “piccolino” (“little boy” in Italian) at Verratti and hurries out through another door.

It is lunchtime and the training session at Camp des Loges, a half-hour drive west of Paris, has just finished. Verratti did not take part. He is recovering from a groin injury, a consequence of the demanding schedule for PSG who are still involved in three competitions, but is hoping to be fit for the Chelsea game. Verratti, who has a contract with PSG until 2020, is one of the veterans of the PSG plan that began to take shape at the start of the decade.

His arrival from the Serie B side Pescara in 2012 showed Serie A heavyweights such as Juventus and Napoli they were no longer an automatic dream destination for a talented young Italian. The 19-year-old chose to join PSG, where another Italian, Ancelotti, was in charge. Other players, such as Javier Pastore, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Thiago Silva, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and later on Edinson Cavani, also moved from Italy to the French capital.

Verratti, who is known as Gufetto – the owl – by the fans, a nickname given to the Italian by his girlfriend, settled quickly. His tenacious style and never-say-die attitude have endeared him to the home supporters at Parc des Princes and his passing ability has drawn admiration from afar – the former Barcelona legend Xavi holds him in high esteem.

Marco Verratti takes on Chelsea’s Diego Costa in the first leg of the last-16 Champions League tie in Paris on 16 February. Photograph: Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images

He is often compared to Andrea Pirlo, whose playmaker responsibilities, the regista role, he is set to shoulder for Italy in the European Championship this summer but it is another player who taught Verratti the key skills of central midfield.

“I was very young when I first got to Paris and Claude Makélélé [Ancelotti’s assistant coach at the time] looked after me and gave me lots of advice. We used to go on the training pitch together and enact different game situations and discuss the options that were there for me as a midfielder. He is a great maestro for me.”

As for the English player who has influenced him the most, Verratti picks a fellow midfielder – and good friend. “I had the pleasure of getting to know David Beckham, an icon of football and beyond that,” Verratti says of the former England captain, who spent six months at PSG in 2013, winning the Ligue 1 title in the process. “He’s a great person, but I had no idea he was such a shy guy. Sometimes when you speak to him he blushes.

“It’s very strange, he’s famous around the world but in private he is very shy. We used to mix English, Italian and Spanish to communicate. He is polite and has good values, that’s why everybody respects him. He’s a great person and a terrific player.”

Verratti in person is intelligent and straightforward, much like he is as a player. He has even worked hard to eradicate the one problem to have afflicted his career, a pretty much unrivalled capacity to pick up yellow cards. Verratti’s bookings, 18 in all competitions last season, were as much a permanent feature as Ibrahimovic’s goals – until this year.

“I’m getting older and I’m still learning,” he says. “The bookings I got were often unnecessary so I’ve shut my mouth and don’t get them anymore, which is good because I used to be suspended a lot. I’ve also learnt French so I can express myself better. Before that, I think the referees felt I attacked them.”

Verratti is settled at PSG and the fact his French is much improved has helped. He has just signed a deal to stay, despite interest from leading English clubs. “Ligue 1 is the only top league I’ve played in and I’m very happy here. The club placed their bets on me when I was still very young and I’m grateful for that. The Premier League is really strong but I’m not a player who likes new challenges just for the sake of it. The future will tell.”

He does acknowledge, though, that English football has something the French top league lacks – unpredictability. “The Premier League is fascinating and I follow it closely. This season is strange, with no team managing to leave the rest behind. I’m fascinated by Leicester, it’s a beautiful football tale – and they’ve got an Italian manager. It’s a team where everybody helps, with a great spirit and sacrifice. They just never stop running. Let’s hope they will be rewarded for that. I’m a fan and I hope Ranieri wins the title.”

The Champions League is not the only competition Verratti is hoping to win in 2016. The Euros are around the corner and the player dubbed “the next big leader” by the Italy coach, Antonio Conte, is in the same group with Italy as his PSG team-mate Ibrahimovic’s Sweden.

“I’m happy to play against him. Zlatan deserves to go far in a competition,” Verratti says. “Sweden should be grateful to him, he was decisive in qualifying and let’s hope he continues like that – except for the game against Italy. Ibra and I get along really well, and when I was new at the club he helped me a lot. He’s a player that on his own is worth 50% of a team. This season is probably his best ever and the whole team would love him to stay next season but only the club and Zlatan can decide about his future.”

Marco Verratti at PSG’s training base outside Paris. Photograph: Nikolai Jakobsen/Nikolai Jakobsen for the Guardian

The Swede is anxious to crown his career with a triumph in Europe, while Verratti is only beginning his journey. Against Chelsea, however, they will have to do without another pillar in the Paris project.

Serge Aurier is banned from the training ground for another couple of weeks after a live internet question-and-answer session went horribly wrong, in which the Ivory Coast international insulted a number of team-mates, notably Ibrahimovic, and called Blanc “a faggot”.

The club has since done its best to protect the squad from further controversies and after the first leg against Chelsea the players were simply not allowed to talk about it. Verratti, however, looks relaxed when asked about the full-back’s predicament.

“Footballers are paid to win games and not to care too much about these kind of things. In the dressing room we honestly don’t speak that much about it. Above all, it became a huge thing in the media.

“I’m sorry about what happened, both for the club and for Serge. I’m sure he understands he messed up. But we have lots of games at the moment, many of them really important, and that’s what we’re thinking about.”

Starting with Chelsea on Wednesday.

Johanna Frändén works for the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet in Paris and has covered Paris St-Germain since 2012