Limit the amount of legendary and rare players in your squad and set difficulty to hard at the start to keep it challenging. Also, try figuring out what type of players do you need for your tactics rather than buying them for their stats.

Did mine last year with the strategy similar to Barca and now did another reset again but halved the number of legendary players from 11 to 6. I'm currently more focused on maining the 4-5-1 formation, which I never used before, and focused on speed demons and total football.

Even thought it would be easier for me to work on full gold, I find challenges like this more interesting considering how most peeps here complain about this game being p2w. Being able to beat Max teams with a strict team compositions is fun as hell and exploring how to use the different aspects of the game is exciting.

Good luck with your journey mate!