Lionel Messi built his career around solving football problems other players could not. His coming animated series gives that idea a literal fantasy setting. In Messi and the Giants, a 12-year-old boy named Leo enters a world where other competitors can enhance themselves through special powers. Leo cannot. He has to win another way.
The Disney+ project arrives as Messi’s identity continues expanding beyond his playing career. Stadio has already looked at the clubs and projects connected to Messi’s name, but this series goes somewhere different. Instead of asking children to understand his career, it turns recognizable pieces of the Messi story into the rules of a fictional hero.
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The world of Messi and the Giants
The setting is Iko, an alternate reality divided into 10 realms controlled by giants. Leo’s route home runs through football-like contests involving powerful orbs. His opponents can use the world’s code-based powers to improve their abilities. He cannot, leaving skill, decision-making, determination and teamwork as his advantages.
The series itself is much older than the latest teaser. An animated project inspired by Messi was first announced in 2023, when the concept centered on a young version of him moving through a video-game world. Later that year, Messi and the Giants emerged as the title. Disney acquired the series in 2024, turning what had begun as an unusual Messi side project into a production headed for one of the world’s largest streaming platforms.
Now the show is much closer to becoming real. A new teaser debuted at San Diego Comic-Con Málaga, and Disney has set a global Disney+ release for summer 2027. The series will also air on Disney Channel in the United States. Argentine actor Milo Burgess-Webb voices Leo, while Luck Ra performs the original theme song, “Vamos, Vamos, Vamos.”
A hero without special powers
Making Leo the character without special powers is the most interesting creative choice. Disney doesn’t need younger viewers to know why Messi’s Barcelona years mattered or how Argentina won the World Cup. The series can start with a much simpler image that followed him throughout his career: the smaller player confronting opponents who appear physically better equipped to stop him.
The fantasy mechanics push that idea further. In Iko, other competitors can access abilities that Leo simply doesn’t have. His disadvantage is part of the story. He has to improvise, trust teammates and depend on the qualities he already possesses rather than discovering some hidden superpower.
That turns a familiar part of Messi’s public mythology into something children can understand without watching old matches. His size, technique and ability to move through larger defenders become the foundation of an underdog adventure rather than details from a football biography.
Messi has previously described the project in terms of the values he associates with sport, including perseverance, discipline, hard work and teamwork. Those themes now have a fictional structure around them rather than simply appearing in promotional material.
The choice of Milo Burgess-Webb also separates the character from Messi himself. Messi is an executive producer, but he isn’t voicing the 12-year-old Leo. Burgess-Webb becomes the voice of the fictionalized version, helping the series stand on its own rather than functioning as an animated autobiography.
Football moves further into streaming
That distinction puts Messi and the Giants in a very different category from the documentaries that have followed Messi’s actual career. Those productions depend on real matches, archival footage and the significance viewers already attach to his achievements. This one removes the trophies, stadiums and recognizable opponents almost entirely.
It also arrives as football personalities occupy a growing space in streaming entertainment. Stadio recently covered The Overlap’s move onto Disney+, another example of football-based programming reaching audiences outside the traditional match broadcast. Messi and the Giants takes that crossover much further by turning a footballer into the inspiration for an original fantasy universe.
There are still major details Disney hasn’t announced. The series has a summer 2027 window rather than an exact premiere date, and the complete voice cast hasn’t been revealed. Atlantis Animation is handling the animation, with Sony Pictures Television and Sony Music teams involved in the production. Messi and his late father, Jorge Messi Pérez, are both listed among the executive producers, with Jorge credited in memoriam.
The unusual part isn’t simply that Messi has an animated series carrying his name. Messi and the Giants takes the outline of the story that made him famous and strips away almost everything specific to professional football. What remains is a small player in an oversized world, trying to overcome opponents who seem to have every advantage.
