"Stars just tell you how good the player is relative to your leve" exactly, nothing more or less but helps you to make an idea about how good you are for your level.

Regarding reaching the others, well is quite impossible to be honest, well not impossible but really hard, we are speaking of years of Top Eleven but the thing is that you don't need to be on the highest level to enjoy the game as long you won't have teams that are level 30-40 when you are level 1,2. You will only face opponents around your level, in general +1 or -1 but depends on more factors.

In time yes you would be able to get on the same level with them because the top level teams actually need few seasons to promote one level but still we are talking of many years, unless something don't change in meanwhile.