I started to play it one or one and a half week ago with an English squad, then 3 days later i got a pretty decent silver-bronze team with Npower 1 and Npower champ. players.
THEN 3 days ago i was about to make coins. I started with the 1.5k bronze pack opening method, which gave me some pretty good players from the English league, and also great paced players like Dembélé, so i could sell them for much more money than i actually got the packs. Next day i had 2-3k money (i was also playing matches and got coins from it; i had contracts from the 1.5k packs), i started to buy gold shiny contract cards, there are always some idiots who are giving it so cheap, so i bought them and could sell them for twice that much money.
After that i could buy only contracts packs for 3k, which is great. It gives you only contracts, and 7/10 of the packs gave me around 4-5k profit from the 3k pack. You can also be really lucky if you get a 4-1-2-1-2 formation card, those worth around 40k, but all the 4 defender formation cards are worth around/over 3k, and a regular gold contract card is around 500-550, so i got over 10k pretty much in a day or so. I kept selling and buying the next day and i could buy a team like this (i bought all of them today):
Insane team, great to play with, 5 star with 100 chemistry. All of them have a grat pace, even the center backs have 83 and 76, which is insane! I have all the palyers in 4-2-2-2, which is the third or the fourth most expensive formation in the game to build a team with. I got lucky with all the players, for example Briand 91 pace) cost me only 900 coins. The luckiest was Benzema though, he cost me 9900 ONLY! All other Benzemas on the market cost over 20k, even the 5-2-2-1 formationed ones are around that amount, so it was crazy. All the attackers have 4 or 5 star skills, which is great to go around with, especially with high accelerations and balances! The main squad cost me 35000 coins all together, while the subs were 10800.
They all have 9 chemistry, except M'Bia, just cause he doesn't connect with Mangala at CB, cause M'Bia is playing in a Ligue 1 team (Marseille), while Mangala is in a portugese team (Porto); and M'Bia isn't french.
EDIT: If I used Fanni from the subs as RB, they all would have 9 chemistry, cause he is also palying in Marseille.I didn't play for the manager, luckily i got him once in a pack with 4-2-2-2 formation, and from England, which was great for the beginning of my first team, later if i won't have money problems at all, i will buy a french one with 4-2-2-2, but it doesn't matter really since the players can't really get better from him.
Now i threw away my Brazilian team ideas and dreamings, if i would've bought the same skilled players from Brazil, i had no money, neither even a full squad without subs at all. I recommend these methods and ideas for everybody playing the game, it got me pretty much to the top team-wise in such a short time, and it would do the same with you if you follow some of these tips, i swear!
Btw i'm playing it on PC, my Origin name is squeeeak, feel free to add me, so we can play