Play With the USA Real Life Pyramid in Football Manager 2019 – Download the USA / Canada Expansion League Database
Want to try on the challenge of managing in the MLS in Football Manager, and work your way up from the lower leagues of USA or Canada? Thanks to the dedicated US Soccer fan, Uncle Sam, now you can!
The Football Manager 2019 American Lower Leagues Database let’s you work your way from the Expansion leagues in the 8th tier in USA and the fourth division of Canada, all the way up to the MLS and play with the real life pyramid of USA and Canada in Football Manager 2019.
By downloading the FM19 USA / Canada Expansion League Database you’ll be able to hunt for promotion from the USL League One within the professional league pyramid of USA or enjoy the new experience of managing in the top leagues of Canada, unless you’ll want to ultimate lower league management experience by taking over a club in the bottom tiers of USA.
This Football Manager 2019 database by Uncle Sam is quite simply the most realistic USA league pyramid for any version of Football Manager. Included you’ll get every cup and competitions that exists in North America (USA and Canada), in additional to real club logos and kits for the US and Canadian teams available as a secondary bonus download.
With the latest update (v 3.7), the database has become even more realistic! We encourage you to re-download it.
Experience the real American way! Download Uncle Sam’s FM19 Real Life USA / Canada Complete League Pyramid Database below
Did you know?
‘Uncle Sam’ is actively promoting the experience of playing in the American league pyramid at his website Uncle Sam’s FM blog, where you can follow his Football Manager careers in USA.
If you’d like to know more about playing in the Major League in Football Manager you can check out his video tutorials covering the league format – Part 1, squad breakdown – part 2 and the final part Player Acquisition. All three will be valuable guides to understand the Major League Soccer, it’s structures, rules and restrictions.
If you should have any questions about playing in the MLS, please hit him up at Twitter, @UncleSamFM.
About the FM19 North American Lower League Databases
The North American Lower league database files of Uncle Sam’s are created with the sole purpose of re-creating the league structure of the professional and amateur football leagues in USA and Canada. With over 15000 database changes, the database file is quite extensive, but to summarize you’ll receive both real clubs added to their current real life division, 660 real players and managers added, 470 real stadiums included plus 40 new tournaments and competitions that exists in real life created. It even adds new awards, derby names and media sources.
And finally all divisions, clubs, cups and tournaments are created with their real name.
Sorted by the nation of origin, the file makes these leagues and tournaments playable;
In USA
Since only the MLS is playable by default, the database unlocks the 6 divisions below it plus the US Expansions Teams at the 8th tier of the American league pyramid.
Professional leagues
- USL Championship: USL Eastern and USL Western Conference
- USL League 1
- NPSL Pro
- National Independent Soccer Association
Semi-pro divisions:
- USL League 2: North East, Mid Atlantic, South Atlantic, Southeast, Deep South, Mid South, Great Lakes, Heartland, Northwest, Mountain, Southwest Divisions, plus playoffs (11 divisions)
- National Soccer Premier League (NSPL Championship): Northeast, South, Midwest and West Region (4 divisions)
Youth Development leagues:
- NCAA: 20 groups (All 24 conferences)
- USSDA (aka US Soccer Development Academy): Northeast, Atlantic, Southeast, Mid-America, Frontier, Northwest, Southwest Divisions
Expansion Leagues: (7th Division)
- US Expansion Teams
Cups/Tournaments:
- Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
- Several real life preseason exhibition tournaments
- Rivalry Competitions for all current and incoming MLS teams
In Canada
The North American lower league database also makes the Canadian football league system playable in Football Manager 2019.
- Canadian Premier League
- First Division
- League1 Ontario Division + Cup
- Première Ligue de soccer du Québec Division + Cup
- Second Division
- Canadian Soccer League
- Pacific Coast Soccer League + Cup
- Canadian Soccer League Second Division
Also included are the cups for League1 Ontario and PLSQ. The Canadian Championship is also set to include the CPL champion starting in the second season.
Valuable Information About Uncle Sam’s FM19 Real Life USA / Canada Expansion League Database
United States
Major League Soccer:
All default rules are still in place (salary cap, allocation money, contract types, All-Star Game, Drafts, etc). In 2019, as by default, FC Cincinnati joins the league (as is the case in real life). Expansion draft still occurs. The big addition here is the 2020 expansion where Beckham’s Inter Miami franchise joins the league along with Nashville, as is happening in real life. Some liberty was taken with the Nashville franchise, as they have not announced their branding yet. I simply “promoted” Nashville SC from USL Championship. The teams join the league as normal, however the expansion draft for 2020 does not seem to take place. FM obviously realizes that expansion is happening because it shows on the calendar, however it never actually occurs as it does for the 2019 expansion. It’s apparently a hard-coding issue. Also included is the recently announced changes to the playoffs, starting in 2019. Seven teams from each conference now qualify for a chance to win the MLS Cup, up from six.
United Soccer League Championship:
The league plays in 2018 with the same 33 teams from real life. In 2019, FC Cincinnati leaves the league to join MLS. Penn FC, Richmond Kickers, and Toronto FC II “relegate” to USL One. Austin Bold FC, Birmingham Legion FC, El Paso Locomotive, Hartford Athletic, Loudoun United FC, Memphis 901 FC, and New Mexico United all join the league for the 36 real life teams for 2019. In 2020, Nashville SC joins MLS and Sand Diego FC is added to the league. In 2021, Chicago and Oakland join for 38. The 7 expansion clubs can be chose from USL League One at the beginning of the game.
United Soccer League One:
The league does not schedule any matches in 2018, however you can choose the clubs which do not play in other leagues at the beginning of the game (Chattanooga Red Wolves, Forward Madison, Greenville Triumph, Lansing Ignite, North Texas SC, Orlando City B, and the Rochester Rhinos) It also starts with the 7 expansion teams that join USL in 2019 so you can start with one of them and build the squad. League begins play in 2019, and Omaha joins in 2020.
NPSL Pro: Does not schedule any matches for 2018 or 2019 and begins play in 2020. You can pick Cal United and Cal FC in the beginning. In 2019, the NPSL Founders Cup generates with the 10 teams set to play in the NPSL Pro Division competing in the same format as it is set to in real life.
National Independent Soccer Association: This league begins play in 2019. In real life the NISA will run on a Fall-Spring calendar, but this cannot be done in the FM editor when the rest of the nation runs on a Spring-Fall calendar.
NCAA: All 209 teams and 24 conferences are included. Set up to mimic real life as much as FM will allow. 21 of 24 conferences have tournaments, with all 24 conference champions gaining automatic bids to the NCAA Championship Tournament. Players selected for the MLS Superdraft will come from the NCAA.
DA / US Soccer Development Academy: This is where newgens are generated in USA in FM. Activating the division means that the youngsters will get meaningful matches. This league matches real life as much as possible, but in reality the league runs on a fall-spring schedule and FM doesn’t allow one division in a nation to run fall-spring if the rest of the leagues run spring-fall.
United Soccer League Two: Setup to reflect real life for all 2018-2019 changes. FC Tucson and South Georgia Tormenta play in USL2 in 2018 before joining USL1 in 2019.
National Premier Soccer League: Also setup to function in 2018-19 as in real life. Chattanooga FC, Detroit City, Miami FC, Miami United, Milwaukee Torrent, New York Cosmos, FC Arizona, and ASC San Diego all play in NPSL in 2018 before moving to NPSL Pro in 2019.
Canada
Canadian Premier League: Now that I know all of the rules, I have been able to recreate the CPL as it will function in real life. The league plays a 10-match Spring Season, a 18-match Fall (Autumn) Season, with the winner of each plays for the overall championship. If one team wins both the Spring and the Fall, the team with the second best record overall plays in the two-legged league championship. My file will record the winners of each half of the season, and the overall champion. I have also gotten the squad rules as close as I could to the real life rules (23 players, 7 foreign player maximum, and at least three U21 domestic players in the squad).
Second Division: League1 Ontario and the PLSQ are recreated as close as possible to real life, including league cups.
Third Division: Pacific Coast Soccer League, Canadian Soccer League, and the CSL Second Division.
Canadian Championship: Is set to function as in real life. The six teams that participated in the tournament in 2018, with the CPL teams joining the other six real life teams in the 2019 edition. Starting in 2020 the L1O and PLSQ champions join the 7 CPL teams, the Ottawa Fury, and the 3 Canadian teams from MLS in the correct format.
ADDITIONAL FILES
Apparently modifying MLS in the editor causes the default CONCACAF Champions League to go haywire, so I rebuilt it. It functions better with the CONCACAF League and CFU Club Championship competitions which I also rebuilt. If you do not include these files with my USA-Canada expansion, the Champions League will not select the proper teams. For the Concacaf League and the Concacaf Champions League to function properly, you will need to drop the Mexico and Costa Rica leagues files into the “editor files” folder. These competitions have been modified to ensure that the correct clubs qualify for continental play.
Below you’ll find links to all additional files that’s necessary to enjoy the full experience of the FM19 North American lower leagues database.
MLS Club Continental Competitions
CONCACAF in the Copa Sudamericana – CONMEBOL used to invite teams from North America to compete in the Copa Sudamericana. That deal ended when CONCACAF changed the format of the Champions League and started scheduling matches in the fall when the Sudamericana was played. Now that the Champions League has returned to playing all of their matches in the spring, there has been some discussion of allowing North American teams in the Sudamericana again. I remember playing in Sudamericana with the older versions of FM and it was a lot of fun, so I built this file that sends the CONCACAF Champions League winners and runner-up to the Sudamericana.
Pan-Pacific Championship – This revives a now-defunct preseason friendly competition that used to pit the champions of MLS Cup against the champions of Australia, Japan, and South Korea in a one-leg knockout competition. There is a third place match so two matches are guaranteed.
International Champions Cup – This recreates the summer friendly competition that is played mostly in the United States in real life. This version plays the entire competition in the US and adds the MLS Supporters Shield champion as well as the Libertadores champion, who has been invited in the past.
Central American & Caribbean Leagues
This file adds the national leagues for Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. These are actually updates on claasen’s files from the past (so I will remove them if he so wishes but he has apparently taken a break from the scene and did not update these himself so I went ahead and did it). I added these to increase the MLS playing experience by adding some continental leagues and expand the player pool for acquisitions. Also included is the Central American Club championship competition. There are also files for the Champions League and CONCACAF league that adjust how teams are drawn from Costa Rica. The CCL and CL in this file are different from the versions included with the MLS download so you will need to remove those and add these files if you intend on running Costa Rica.
Updated 13.05.2019
International Competitions
These files add some international competitions to enhance the North American experience. Like all of the others, you can pick and choose which ones you want.
USA January Camp – When I managed the US national team it always bugged me that I couldn’t schedule friendlies in January because in real life they hold a camp for the domestic players (and guys who play in Spring-Fall leagues like Scandinavia). So I created this file to add the camp. The US will play two matches against nations chosen randomly from a list of countries that have played against in January in the past.
Pan American Games – This is a real life youth competition for U22 teams from North and South America. It helps to prepare the national team programs for Olympic Qualifying.
Central American & Caribbean Games – Real life U21 competition for Latin American national teams (No USA or Canada)
Central American Games – U20 Championship for the 7 Central American Nations
Copa Nuevo Mundo – In 2016 the USA hosted the Copa America. After the tournament was a huge success, there was talk about creating a new competition held every four years for the top national teams from CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. This is is that competition. I call it the Copa Nuevo Mundo (Cup of the New World). It consists of 16 teams (8 from CONCACAF, 8 from CONMEBOL) held every four years in the United States.
ADDITIONAL FILES FOR THE CONCACAF CLUB COMPETITIONS: Apparently modifying MLS in the editor causes the default CONCACAF Champions League to go haywire, so I rebuilt it. It functions better with the CONCACAF League and CFU Club Championship competitions which I also rebuilt. If you do not include these files with my USA-Canada expansion, the Champions League will not select the proper teams. For the Concacaf League and the Concacaf Champions League to function properly, you will need to drop the Mexico and Costa Rica leagues files into the “editor files” folder. These competitions have been modified to ensure that the correct clubs qualify for continental play.
KNOWN ISSUES:
- For whatever reason, the expansion draft does not happen for the 2020 or 2021 expansions. As best as I can tell, this is a hard-coding issue pertaining to MLS expansion. The expansion draft does still occur for FC Cincinnati.
- Some NPSL and USL2 clubs won’t fill their squads. Some teams will always have only gray players. I’ve tried different things, but for now there seems to be no way around this. My guess as to why this is the case would be because in FM, clubs in the USA do not develop new players. All new domestic American players come through the Academy system whereas clubs in other countries’ have a yearly youth intake. I can’t say for sure why some semi-pro clubs don’t just go sign free players, but I’d say it’s related to the unique US youth system in FM.
- UPDATE: While this issue still exists to an extent, adding many new academies has seemed to reduce it greatly.
- NCAA teams will not function exactly as they should in real life. FM sees the teams as amatuer U23 clubs. Their squads are usually automatically populated which I would suppose is because the SuperDraft pulls from them.
- Professional clubs from USL2, and the Division 3 competitions will sign players from the NCAA and Academy leagues. I have done what I can to minimize this phenomenon, but it is unfortunately unavoidable and unrealistic. The somewhat good news is that it will happen less frequently as the game progresses after the professional clubs have filled their squads.
DISCLAIMER: This file has a LOT of moving parts. I’ve done a lot of testing, but I’m sure there are some things that slipped through the cracks. If you come across something please post it at the official download thread at the Sigames Forum, and I will try to correct it as soon as possible.
I have NO idea how this file will conflict with other database files. If you have an issue, by all means report it and I will try to make it compatible but I can’t make promises of that.
Change list – 13.05.2019
USA
– Added the Generation Adidas Cup. Functions as it does in real life, with a regional qualifying round for all of the MLS Academies. The top teams from each group advance to the Champions round, and the next 3 teams from each group moved on to the Premier round. The Premier and Champions rounds include some international youth teams and consist of group and knockout stages.
It’s setup to mimic real life, however the calendar is impossible to recreate in FM correctly. In my file the qualifying round is played in the spring while the premier and champions divisions take place in the fall, which is the opposite of real life.
– Added the recently announced Omaha club, which begins play in USL League One in 2020.
Branding of club colours is a fictional concept designed by the owner of this site (who also gave me permission to use his concept): http://tylerlenzdesign.com/omahafc.html
Canada
– Created the Canadian top level collegiate soccer division (U-Sports). All 4 “conferences” and 48 teams are included. Right now, they’re stand alone divisions. The FM editor doesn’t allow us to create a new draft that isn’t already hardcoded in (like the MLS SuperDraft), however part of the purpose is to have the groundwork laid in case a future version of the game allows us to add this function for the Canadian Premier League.
As with all of my files, the leagues are all built to function as in real life. The two playoff finalists from each conference advance to the U-Sports Championship.
Central American Leagues
I also fixed the Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago files, so that each has their own league structure.
Awards
– I also cleaned up some of the awards so that they are all correct.
Change list – 1.7.2019
USA
-USL Championship now adds San Diego FC in 2020 while Oakland and Chicago join in 2020.
-NISA/NPSL Founders Cup and Professional Division: Changes have been made to reflect the latest information we know. Miami FC will now join NISA after the Founders Cup, while Oakland Roots has withdrawn from the Founders Cup entirely to join the NISA. Competition format for the NISA mimics real life as closely as possible.
-NCAA: Conferences and Conference Tournaments have each been organized in single competitions, making navigation much easier.
-Awards: Many awards have been added to all of the lower level competitions, all based on real life (with the exception of the NISA and NPSL Pro, those have been improvised since we do not know what awards they will distribute).
-Supplemental Data: a file with squad updates and managers for the lower league teams has also been included.
Canada
Canadian Premier League: Removed salary cap, as I believe this was causing issues for the AI managers when squad building. Updated squad rules to mimic real life as closely as possible (Maximum 7 foreign players, Maximum 5 foreign players in playing 11, Minimum 3 U21 National Players in squad. Also updated the Television Money to match the real life figure of $20M being distributed among the clubs.
Academy Division: While this is not entirely realistic, not having a U18 division made it difficult to handle youth intakes. For that reason I created an Academy division for the CPL clubs, which the league does plan to do eventually.
Graphics
2D Kits: Updated all kits for MLS, USL Championship, and USL League One.
3D Kits: Updated 3D kits for MLS (including conceptual kids for expansion sides Nashville SC, Inter Miami, and Austin FC), the United States and Canadian national teams.
Logos: Updated all logos
Change list – 11.7.2019
USA
-Updated all kits and logos for the USL Championship, USL League One, NISA, and NPSL Pro.
*NOTE* All graphics must be placed in the graphics folder, similar to what you would do for other logos and facepacks. Read instructions here.
You will NEED these files. If NOT, the correct teams will not qualify for the Concacaf Champions League. It also includes files for Costa Rica and Mexico, which you will also need to sort out qualification for the Champions League and Concacaf League.
DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS
- Download the American / Canadian database above.
- Put the files into folder :
My Documents / Sports Interactive / Football Manager 2019 / Editor Data
- Quit and Re-start Football Manager if you’re playing it
- Start a NEW Save
- Locate ‘Database’ – Click on the down menu 19.X Update
- View under
Editor Data Files
- Tick the USA / Canada Expansion Database and other competition files (CONCACAF League, CONCACAF Champions League or CFU Club Championship)
- Un-tick any files that may conflict
- Click Confirm
- Select
Advanced Setup
- Add USA and Confirm
- Click the drop down menu under Active Leagues
- Select US Expansions Teams and Above
- Locate Approximate Player Count in Right sidebar
- Click the drop down menu : X players
- Select
Advanced...
- To experience more players, select either;
- Nations – USA + Canada – Players based in nation
- or, Regions – North America – Players based in nations
- Experience an even more realistic Football Manager 2019!
P.S. Remember to set start date January 2019 to play at the start of a new season in USA or Canada.
Credits
This file is largely inspired by forum member paulgerty. He used to release a file much like this one. I haven’t seen him around in awhile, but without his work this likely wouldn’t exist.
Aljarov is the official SI head researcher for North America. He and the North American FM community helped and even provided a significant amount of the raw data.
Thanks to Community member yellowsweatygorilla, who I’ve collaborated with in the creation process of making the real life Canadian database with its data.
Shoutout to all the other editor creators whose files I examined to help me learn how the process works. They would be too many to name, but thanks!