Well what I do is look at the available players. Exemple a 5 stars one is arriving followed by a 4 stars one. Both of them are young. Usually players will go with the 5 stars guy and try their luck. Your job is to wait for that 5 stars. If you see a lot of bidders coming in just go with the 4. Now you have 2 choices. If the 4 stars player havent still go any bidder and is kinda expensive, bid like 5 min before. If you're lucky, just one will try to contest you. now at the knockout round, wait until the last moment of the auction and press bid. Your opponent should think that you placed the bid from like half an hour and wont use his token for the knockout. Congrats, you've got a player =P
Well that's what I do usually but it doesn't always work. Sometimes in the knockout rounds, I try to bid always in the first seconds of the knockout so people think I am sure of myself. Then at round 10 I wait until the last seconds of the timer and bid. People would think I've ran out of tokens and won't bid anymore. I managed to get some 5 stars players with that method but doesn't always work. But at level 2 it should be easy.
Well good luck =)