The game is set in real time. The team you start with is completely random. There are five more games left in this season.
To answer your second question, how do I make more money? First, look at your players, if any are 4.5 or 5.0 star talent and still fairly young (too me under 21) you should put them up for sale. If you do this you will want to place an ad to show that they are available and what there talent level is. Also, you should schedule friendly games for Mondays(this week is probably too late). You can either place an ad for friendly games (if you do this you will want to be available to respond to the challenge) or you can randomly challenge up to 20 human controlled teams. If you do this I would recommend challenging teams that have stadiums of 15-20k (this is the size that maximizes revenue for a friendly game).