Ways that I have found to make the game more challenging:
- Turn off Coaches and Scouts. You can use your scouts better than the AI, as well as make sure you have the best coaches.
- Either turn ratings off completely or turn on more difficult rating scales: 2-8, 20-80, 1-5
- Turn stars off.
- Potential only. You cannot see actual ratings just players potential.
- Trading AI to very hard.
Try these, and see how you do.