How The LEGO Group Has Turned Soccer Fandom Into Its Next Big Play

LEGO's immortalization of soccer icons is its latest step to satisfy fandoms across entertainment, sport, and more.

The LEGO Group

The LEGO Group’s recent collaborations have underscored its growing focus on fandom. You could argue that football has been its most ambitious target in recent years — its 2026 FIFA World Cup lineups, which seem omnipresent in stores worldwide, are proof that it’s going all in on the sport.

Its inevitable FIFA World Cup Official Trophy (43020), plus the Emblem (43032) and more left-field Football (43019), are perhaps more predictable LEGO fare, but the company’s decision to create four Football Highlights sets in conjunction with four of the game’s biggest names — Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Vinicius Jr. — is a much more curious concept.

The sets are part of LEGO Editions, a line launched earlier this year specifically created to celebrate fandoms, which has since spawned collaborations with Formula 1 drivers and Olivia Rodrigo. While the LEGO Group has a long history of creating products connected to huge franchises — just look at its vast Star Wars collection— football is arguably the most high-profile, or, at least, accessible example of its renewed approach so far, with some of the world’s most recognizable athletes arriving in pocket-friendly $30 sets just in time for the biggest event on the sport’s calendar.

For senior product designer Freddy Charters, who designed the sets for Messi and Vini Jr., the project brought together two of his biggest passions: designing LEGO sets and following football.

Originally from Hereford, U.K., Charters has spent the past six years turning a childhood interest in design into a career at the LEGO Group. He joined the company as an intern while studying industrial design at Loughborough University, working on LEGO Ninjago before returning as a full-time product designer after a brief freelance spell with the LEGO Foundation.

Since then, he has worked across LEGO DREAMZzz, LEGO Monkie Kid, and now LEGO Editions, designing more than 20 sets during his time with the company. The internship that first brought him to the LEGO Group has also come full circle, as Charters now helps train the next generation of LEGO design interns.

Although his career has taken him through several themes, LEGO Editions has offered a particularly personal challenge: creating sets based on players he’s followed throughout his life.

“I mean, I’m a huge football fan,” he says. “I was just ridiculously excited, and grateful, you know? It was a dream assignment, but the LEGO Group wanted to choose people who were football fans in the building, right? We wanted to make sure it was made for fans, because the whole Editions range is made for fans, by fans. That was really important.”

Rising up the leagues

Charters’ route to LEGO was not necessarily the traditional path of someone who grew up determined to become a toy or sports equipment creator, and the opportunity to join the LEGO Group came through an industrial design degree and a year-long internship.

“I wanted to be in design in some way since school,” he says. “I went to University in Loughborough. I did an industrial design degree there, which required a year-long internship. I applied for lots of internships, but I was very lucky to get one with the LEGO Group as a designer.

“I worked on Ninjago, and then I did that for a year. I finished my final year of studies, and after a few months of freelance design work for the LEGO Foundation, I actually ended up getting a full-time job as a model designer at the LEGO Group. That’s where I joined LEGO DREAMZzz.”

The opportunity was particularly significant because Charters had been a LEGO fan growing up, even if he went through a familiar period during high school.

“I loved it as a kid, and I love LEGO bricks and just building and coming up with anything I could, especially around LEGO Knights; I loved anything like that — anything with castles in it. I liked it a lot when I was a kid, and then I went through that teenage phase where I didn’t build as much.

“When the internship opportunity came up, I was, like, oh my God, this sounds really amazing, and I even remember in my interview for that, I cited my love of LEGO Knights’ Kingdom from when I was a kid, and so when I got the job, I became a big LEGO fan again through the internship.”

Fan favorites

That personal connection became especially valuable when the team began working on the Football Highlights sets. The challenge wasn’t simply to recreate famous players, but to decide which parts of their careers would matter most to supporters.

The four sets celebrate Lionel Messi, Vinicius Jr., Cristiano Ronaldo, and Kylian Mbappé, with each model using colors, symbols, and hidden references to represent a player’s identity. The team wanted the builds to feel consistent as a collection while still reflecting the individual stories behind each footballer.

Charters explains: “There was just so much to put in. It was a lot of research, working out which moments in their career would be most iconic for fans. We really wanted to make it a good experience for the fan.

“We had a lot of existing knowledge because we’re football fans ourselves, all of us beforehand, so we knew a lot about the players’ careers. We picked the moments we thought were most important. And you know, whatever, whatever the most important ones we could put in there, we would put in there.

“Then we gathered all the football fans from around the building. To have a sort of designer’s playtest, almost, and ask what the most important thing to you is for this, for this player, or something like that, we had a lot of those feedback loops.”

Authenticity is key

The focus on authenticity also influenced which designers worked on which players. Charters and fellow designer Luka Grkovic were initially assigned different footballers, but their own connections to the sport led them to rethink the split.

“So, I mean, originally, Luka was given Mbappe and Messi, and I was given Vini Jr and Ronaldo, but we basically came together, and we were like, this doesn’t really make sense because Luka has been a lifelong fan of Ronaldo and Real Madrid, and so he was like, ‘I’d love to work on the Ronaldo one,’ and for me, Messi’s the greatest of all time, so we just said, ‘why don’t we switch?’ And our leaders were like, yeah, it makes more sense for the people who are actually more fans of that player to switch. So, yeah, we switched.”

That decision reflects one of the LEGO Group’s broader ideologies about LEGO Editions: that fans will notice when something is created with genuine passion and understanding, rather than simply built around a recognizable name.

The devil’s in the details, too, as Charters explains with his two Football Highlights sets. Each model includes references that reward those who know the players’ careers beyond their most famous attributes or on-pitch moments. Charters says some of the more secretive references have already been discovered by fans online, while others remain hidden.

“I’ve been seeing a lot of videos online about the hidden references in these sets, and that’s really cool,” he says. “There are some that fans are still missing. I’m also kind of, like, proud they still haven’t been discovered. I’ve been gradually trying to uncover those things for people as well. With the Messi one, there are quite a few.”

Among the references in the Messi set are nods to his Ballon d’Or victories and the clubs where he achieved those milestones; trees representing the growth of his career; and, in the base, Messi’s connection to mate, the traditional South American drink he adores.

Still, the intention wasn’t to add details for their own sake; Charters wanted the build itself to feel like a journey through a player’s career, giving fans new things to discover as they progressed.

“We really wanted it to be an experience and a journey throughout the set. I’ve learned from all the previous IPs that I’ve worked on — homegrown IPs — that play experiences are so important, so if I can make sure that a kid is building that set, but, you know, starting from the first bag, second bag, third bag... If each bag has something new to discover along the way, then I’ve done my job well. I was really happy to see that people are discovering those sets and really loving the references.”

For the players

The involvement of the players themselves was also important in ensuring the final products accurately represented their careers. Given the demands of playing at the highest level, the LEGO team worked through each player’s management team to gather feedback throughout the process.

“So they’re obviously very busy players. They were part of a very busy season as well, playing for their respective teams, and so we were initially involved with the players’ management teams. And they were involved throughout the whole process. We came up with an initial concept, presented it to them, and they would then show it to the players. That way, the players would have their own input as well.”

Charters says there was once a perception that football and LEGO might not naturally belong together, but he sees the two as connected by the same thing: creativity and passion.

“I guess some might say that there was like a misconception that football and LEGO don’t mix in some ways, because they would say that people who love football just go outside and play football, or they might even play FIFA or something like that, but for me, as a football fan, I was like, no, I would really love something that expresses my fandom, and I think that’s what we want to do in the new LEGO Editions line.

“We want to be able to take those fandoms and make something you can express your fandom with in your room, and put it on display and proudly say that you built this set that represents your fandom, and I think that’s something that we really wanted to achieve, and I think it’s proven that; it’s done that, so that’s really nice.”

Football remains close to home for Charters. One of the defining moments of the project came when he traveled to meet Messi and Vinicius Jr. and present the finished sets in person.

“I went to see him in the green room for that now-iconic advert we did for the World Cup. Yeah, they loved it. They honestly loved it, especially Messi. I was so proud to show it to Messi.”

He continues: “I went to speak to Lionel, and he obviously doesn’t speak much English. But I was able to speak as much Spanish as I could. I was able to show him the details of the set and have my colleague, who is Spanish, explain them to him.

“I was able to do that, and they were able to show them, and he said it was, it was overwhelmed because it was, he said, it was surreal because his. Um, his kids have grown up being huge LEGO fans, so for now, for them to be building their dad? He said it was a completely surreal moment for him.”

Despite that career milestone, Charters is already thinking about what comes next, even though he’s delighted to be part of the LEGO Editions team. As with any LEGO designer you’ll talk to, he’s always open to new challenges — though one football-related idea would be particularly perfect for him.

“I’d love to see something to do at the Premier League, obviously, being a huge fan,” he says. “It’s been something I’ve followed all my life.

“Then, obviously, as a huge England fan right now, I’d love to see something to represent Harry Kane or Jude Bellingham, the two people who’ve been driving our success right now. I mean, I think it’d be great to make something as a tribute to England winning the World Cup this year… because, you know, it’s coming home.”