in june 2017, medel was named in the 2017 fifa confederations cup squad in chile's first ever participation. on 13 june, in the friendly against romania, medel received a red-card in 33rd minute as chile slumped into a 3–2 away defeat. it was his fourth red-card with the national team in 99 appearances. he captained chile in the first two group b due to claudio bravo's injury, respectively in the matches against cameroon and germany, also earning his 100th cap in the process, becoming the fourth chile player to achieve the feat. then he was rested for the final group match as chile achieved a second-place which allowed them to go to knockout stage.