The 2022 World Cup winners must decide whether Lionel Messi will feature from the start in the Copa América warm-up game.

Argentina come into this summer’s Copa América as the favourites to lift the famous trophy but Lionel Scaloni’s side will have to contend with the pressure of being world champions.

Their pre-tournament preparations kick-start on Sunday evening with a friendly game against Ecuador, an opportunity for the team to build momentum ahead of Copa América. But Scaloni must balance his desire to win with the need to give minutes to his lesser-used squad members, to test out new structures and playing combinations.

With that in mind we could see plenty of changes from Argentina over the course of the 90 minutes, but this is how they could line up from the start…

Argentina predicted starting XI: Emiliano Martinez – Nahuel Molina, Cristian Romero, Lisandro Martinez, Marcos Acuna -Rodrigo De Paul, Leandro Paredes, Giovani Lo Celso – Lionel Messi, Alejandro Garnacho, Lautaro Martinez.

Who will start alongside Lionel Messi for Argentina?

Ahead of the game Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni confirmed that Messi would be involved against Ecuador, but that he would not be over-worked: “People are going to be able to see Messi tomorrow. He will play for a while for sure. We are going to think about the minutes of each player to be good for the start [of Copa América]”.

“I imagine Leo [Messi] will play. I don’t know if it will be the entire match, 30 minutes, 60. But the people will be able to see him, that is the most important thing.”

The bigger question, particularly looking ahead to Argentina’s Copa América opener against Canada, is who will partner the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner up front. Scaloni has named a 29-man training squad for the games against Ecuador and Guatemala, which will need to be cut down to 26 players for the start of the tournament.

Even allowing for three departures, Argentina have serious depth in attacking areas with a number of candidates to partner Messi. During the 2022 World Cup Angel Di Maria and Julián Álvarez became the first-choice starters, but both Lautaro Martínez and Alejandro Garnacho have impressed with their club form in the past 12 months.

Martínez and Álvarez look set to battle it out for the central role and Scaloni said that he expects to use both players over the course of the tournament: “The important thing is that both of them [Julián Álvarez and Lautaro Martínez] are fine and we are very happy. They can give us, based on each match, what we are looking for.”