I've been in cup final 3 times but never got the title.

For getting easier cup draw keep a low quality team at season end and quickly fill it with 5~6* players at season start.
For that you have to spend quite a lot of tokens...

The best way to get the lowest quality players is by keeping the free youth from the academy and never assign sp on them.
Build up 14 players below 2* require 6 seasons if the academy is at max level.

Alternatively if you can level up this season, you may sell your top players except the backbone players of the team, and buy 3* player near season end (they become 2* next season). But, it is difficult to sell any player near the end of the season and it is a big loss if you sack the players instead...


Main problem of the cup is that most of the cup winners try to maximize the average quality growth after the start of the season and it is difficult to compete with them due to the quality gap they pull off, which usually 2~3* higher than average in the cup.