On 11 January 2009, Fernández was named by the coach Sergio Batista into the 23-man squad of Argentina U-20 for 2009 South American Youth Championship, where internationally debuted on 19 January in a 1–1 with Venezuela (host nation of the youth championship) at Maturín, where appeared as a starter. In principle Batista frequently put him in the starting lineup, but lost the post after a success challenge of Federico Fernández during a tournament, where Argentina failed to qualify to the FIFA U-20 World Cup held in Ghana.