Lionel Messi and Alejandro Garnacho send Enzo Fernandez message as Chelsea star makes promise

Lionel Messi and Alejandro Garnacho have sent Enzo Fernandez messages on social media. The Chelsea midfielder made his first start following surgery on a groin injury as Argentina stormed past Guatemala in their final Copa America warm-up game.

Fernandez enjoyed a brief cameo off the bench during a 1-0 win over Ecuador earlier this week before forcing himself into Lionel Scaloni's side in Maryland on Saturday morning. The 23-year-old helped Argentina defeat Guatemala 4-1.

Lisandro Martinez put his country behind inside the opening five minutes with an own goal. Messi quickly pulled back an equaliser before Lautaro Martinez put Argentina ahead with a 39th-minute penalty.

The duo then doubled their tallies in the second half. Speaking to TyC Sports, the Inter Milan striker set his sights on Copa America glory. As quoted by the BBC, Martinez said: "We are aiming for the title, we are fighting for everything.

"We said it when the Copa America ended in 2021 and when the World Cup ended, we will try to prepare ourselves to start the Copa America in the best possible way and hopefully it will be all joy."

Fernandez will be hoping to get his hands on some silverware before returning to Chelsea later this summer. Messi added: "We're going to keep trying to do our best, we still want to keep winning titles. It will be harder and harder, the games are getting tougher, winning [the Copa] again is hard, but we will try again."

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After the game, Fernandez marked his first start after surgery with a post on Instagram – which tallied over 350,000 likes in eight hours. He wrote: "All united by the same dream, the cutest thing is coming."

Hundreds of fans joined Garnacho in the comment section to show the Chelsea ace their support. Remaining coy, the Manchester United winger typed out a magic wand emoji while Martinez posted two top hat emojis and a praying emoji.

Messi also marked the win over Guatemala with a celebratory post on Instagram, snapping the moment he and Fernandez shook hands. The Inter Miami forward simply wrote: "All together."

Nevertheless, in May, Fernandez revealed just how painful his groin injury was. He said: "I wanted to let you know that my operation was successful everything went well thank God. I needed to get this surgery since I been dragging the pain for about 6 months.

"It was something I could avoid while constantly treating myself with injections and medications. But a few weeks ago the pain started to get more and more intense, without any of this taking effect, and it was worse as I trained and played annoyingly, but I didn't want to stop being in the games I had.

"Whenever I got to play with Chelsea jersey, like the national team, I always try to do my best despite all this but I can't stand it anymore. Thank you for the messages, encouragement and your token of love always. Shout out to everyone I promise you I’m coming back stronger than ever."