Yeah this is pretty much where I arrived at as well (Bolton and Crewe are my teams this year). I’d like to do it with even lower level teams as I do on FM but the English league is the only one that has anything close to “depth” in terms of the pyramid. FM doesn’t ship necessarily with very deep playable leagues but mods to add playable tiers are plentiful and creates opportunities for a lot of interesting informal challenges. For quite some time the San Marino challenge was very much in vogue (taking the club team to win the Serie A while taking the national team to at least Euro qualification) and I actually spent 3-4 years mainly trying to make that happen and never was able to. With a little extra work some acknowledgment in bringing a team like Oldham or Swindon back to the Prem would be a nice touch for EA but I’ll settle now if they would manage to acknowledge injuries screwing up a season shouldn’t directly result in a paycut for what are unrealistic expectations in player career to begin with.
Although I definitely never tried starting my player character in MLS and have them move to Europe, might give that a shot next. I’ve gone the French/German 2nd division to La Liga/Prem route a few times but the top teams demand ridiculous things that are impossible to achieve if you get injured and my agent would inevitably try to convince me that Punjab FC is the right move for me. I wish they’d add a “fire agent” option. There’s so much potential there but right now it’s mostly empty platitudes and almost sarcastic and cynical recommendations.