Yea, nothing new... I've done ith with York, Torquay and Forest Green in England, Como in Italy and now I'm playing as KS Tirana from Albania. Won Europa League against Tottenham, 2-1, in extra time, who killed me in the QF the previous season. So yea, it's doable. I load the South American databases and there's a wealth of players there for the lower leagues. Players that are far beyond the skill of your current players and nowhere near as expensive to get or primadonnas who want all kinds of crazy contracts. They stick around for 2-3 years then once they've been exposed to the European market they get offers and get sold off elsewhere.
And I use scouts... FMRTE now since there's no Genie, but only to find the players. More like a compare feature. If my first team average CA is 120, I try to get 2-3 players at least 130 or better. But that's not i pick the first one that comes around. I look for a particular set of skills, minimum requirements so to speak and go from there. The search feature in the game just doesn't have that broad a reach... Once I find the players I like I scout them a few times in matches to see how they do and then I decide to offer a contract or not.