Few tips how I try to win auctions:

1. Best time, like Cat said, is a nice bid in the morning (for me in Germany around 7 am) because there are generated players and not too many people bidding at them.
2. Dont bid on too strong players, like, in your case for example a 29 rated Striker, aged 18 and maybe even a speciality. Bid more like on a 27 rated Striker, age maybe 22 without a speciality or a 26 rated with a speciality and age 26 or so.
3. Visit the market often and look at the auctions of many players. It helps to learn the market, so you recognize crazy token spenders, where it is senseless to bid. When I see some people bidding on a player that i made as a favourite, i just dont waste a single token and try again later on another player.
4. BASIC only one token per round
5. When after 5 rounds there are still more than 3 people bidding, STOP!
6. Learn the opponents while bidding - means, varying your bidding, so 2 or 3 knockout-rounds, especially at the beginning, bid within the first seconds of a round, then look how your opponent bids. Sometimes they dont bid when they lead. You can easily knock em out with a last second bit in the next round, no problem what so ever.
7. Avoid bidding more than 11 rounds, people may stop after round 10, but when they pass round 11 as well, its very likely that they bid to round 15 and further.
8. Look at your opponents teams within the ko rounds! If they have 6* players only with specialities, its not worth waisting tokens in a bidding war with them.

I hope these quick tips can help you select and win your auctions more often. If you still have questions, ask!