I will be the token buyer to weigh in I guess.
At the lower lvls you can win quite at lot without spending real money. You will want to look for older players who are 1 point away from 6* in the market. Pay attention to how active the market is based on time of day for a bit first so you can find the dead time and only spend 1 token to get a player.
I have several teams that I don't buy tokens for. I have won leagues with them and even a cup. There are many ways to farm free tokens. Some on each platform too. So you can look at android, the top 11 site and Facebook. I move around all 3 and farm tokens and packs that way.
Now my main team I do buy tokens for. Am not ashamed of it. But even though I spend on tokens there are those who make me look cheap. You will always be looking up at someone at least some of the time. I have to play teams 3 and 4 lvl s above me in every cup.
Also I put people in my friend list who are active and win so I have 10 teams in my league this season who are in the Champions League and most won trophys and are almost the same quality. I am undefeated not because I simply buy it. I also out work almost everyone at lvl 5.
I farm every resource I can, keep advanced statistics of my players, write articles about my main team here. And I manage every game.
I know that I could drop the token spending and while it would be a burden I wouldn't suddenly never win league titles.
Effort will pay off more than token buying unless you spend literally hundreds of dollars per season.