A Beginner’s Guide to MLS Roster Rules in Football Manager 26

Football Manager is a game with a nearly limitless number of challenges available to players because the world of football is filled with teams and leagues which each presents its own unique circumstances. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of Major League Soccer, where American sports norms and world football norms meet in the middle.

This results in one of the most unique roster management challenges in world football if you’re a fan of it, or one of the most opaque and confusing ones if you’re not. If you’re considering a career in the United States in Football Manager 26, then you need to understand how it all works.

Mastering the mechanics of management and roster construction in MLS takes time, but this beginner’s guide can help you understand the core rules you’re working within for your team.

Roster Number Basics

The first thing to understand about registration in the MLS is the different tiers of roster classification and what type of players are eligible for those slots. The slots you may place a player in for your registration are:

• Senior Roster: The primary roster for an MLS side comprises the first 20 slots on the club registration. This is the main area of contention when assessing future considerations like salary, for which the club has a capped amount to set, currently just under $5 million in the current season. There is also a single-player maximum salary limit, currently just under $750,000.
• Supplemental Slots 1 to 4: The next four slots are available to players, making the league minimum salary for senior players, currently just over $100,000 per year. This is a spot you will likely fill with role players who provide depth to your side at affordable prices.
• Supplemental Slots 5 to 10: These slots are assigned to players holding down reserve positions on the roster, which allows for a slightly lower minimum salary, currently just over $80,000. Reserve slots of this fashion are filled by homegrown and youth-pipeline players, not free agents who cannot be signed below the minimum salary.
• Supplemental Slot 11: A final slot is available for players currently out on a season-long loan to a lower league club in the US or Canada.

Salary Caps And Floors

The biggest difference you are likely to encounter immediately in the game is in the way player salaries are managed in MLS. As part of the collective bargaining agreement between the players’ union and the league, contracts in MLS are subject to both maximum salary and minimum salary requirements, which can significantly impact your roster flexibility.

Minimum salary levels are in effect across the board, with each level on the roster sheet having different minimum requirements and different eligibility requirements for a player to receive them. Maximum salary comes in both the form of an overall team cap, which limits the total money you can spend across your 20 primary roster slots, and the individual caps players are subject to. Where things get interesting is in the exemptions available to allow you to get around these rules:

• Designated Players: Depending on the roster path you choose, you will have either two or three designated player slots to fill. These are the slots that allow for the big-name stars you’re used to seeing play their later seasons in the league by allowing teams to offer salaries more competitive with the money on offer in Europe, where the salary caps would otherwise inhibit signings. You can pay a player in a designated slot more than the league maximum while only counting them against the cap as if signed to the league max.
• Young Designated Players: Clubs may also use their designated player slots to lock down talented young players who would otherwise be at risk of leaving to pursue pay more in line with their talent levels. There are two windows a player can fit into when receiving designated player status, with players 20 or younger, currently counting for $150,000, and players 21 to 23, currently counting for $200,000.
• General Allocation Money: The general allocation money is league-paid money for players that each team receives a portion of to use on their squad. This money can then be used to buy down the cap hit of players to allow for additional roster flexibility.

Drafts, Trades, And Transfers

The other big area to understand the changes you’re about to face is in trades and drafting. While they may be familiar if you’re a fan of other US sports, it’s a highly different system than is in place elsewhere in world football. 

In addition to adding players through signing, you will be able to build out with drafting players to become the rightsholder in the league, granting you the right to sign that player in the league. Before the draft, league clubs can nominate eligible players in collegiate sports who are sophomores or higher for the draft. You may only draft from the eligible player pool.

Trading is another unique aspect, even though player swaps are not unique. Within MLS, you can trade players directly, staying within any trade specifications, like limits on how many designated players you can trade. Clubs are now allowed to trade players for cash, functionally recreating the more familiar transfer system for trades using this option.

This is just the shallow end of the MLS pool, as it is a famously complex system to work with. The best way to get your head around managing in the US and Canada is to get your feet wet. Now that you understand the basics of the roster rules, you can find a side you want to manage and see what they’re working with. Learning by doing, you can engage with the restrictions and specializations as you encounter them, as you build a team ready to do the Supporter’s Shield-Playoff double.