The thing about the fake classic players is this: as re-gens, they improve at a much faster rate than regular players. So what I do is make them all old (high 30s to high 40s) and wait for them as re-gens. Then you have some great, unknown youth players. If you want, you can jazz them up, change nationality, appearance, ability, whatever.
If you make them that old to start with, that means they ALL join re-gens very quickly.....which there isn't really a wait.