The game speed stars mean very little. However, 59,000 players with an estimated 4-star speed is very good. You could easily drop down to between 2/3 stars and wouldn't feel a slowdown. I'm playing with over 90,000 on two stars and I'm breezing through the seasons.
With regards to set up it depends on where you want to start, I'm currently doing a journeyman save in Latvia. I've got the Scandinavian leagues, Croatia, Serbia, Kazakstan, Hungary, England, Italy, Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania loaded as playable with everywhere else view only. Also, all national level reputation / international players loaded in Africa and international players from South America with all top league Brazilian and Argentinian players loaded. It gives me a good balance and a huge pool of players to work with.
I recommend checking here if you haven't already to get some more ideas: the9llamas - Setting up a LLaMa Save
Good luck