A sampling of your letters: (And BTW: We’re now running at 159-9 IN FAVOR of what we wrote. Keep ’em coming, please.)

Longtime letterhack Pat Ward writes: “Evidently he is not on your Christmas card list. At the end of the day, your analysis was neither fair nor entirely accurate. He has left the sport and its fan base (in the US) bigger & better than he found them. The player pool is at least an order of magnitude larger now. Columbus Crew Stadium only seats 22,000+ so a pro-American sell out there can't accurately be compared to a sell-out 100,000+ Mexican-only crowd in LA. As you point out, there is now an expectation for success at home and abroad. Now we need to take it to the next level & win against quality teams in Europe and at the Azteca. Unfortunately he won't have the opportunity to try again.”

Pat brings up a couple of points that other writers — whether they agreed with us or not — did, the first implying that we have something personal against Bruce.

In fact: While I cannot speak for any other members of the Trecker family — who as far as I know, never interacted with Bruce at all — both I (Jamie) and Jerry liked Bruce quite a bit.. We got along with him fine, and found him to be witty and smart. In fact, there are a LOT of folks in the soccer biz who we happen to like on a personal level. Liking someone (or not) has nothing to do with our take on their performance, and Pat unintentionally brings up one of the toughest parts of this job. Fact is, most of the folks in soccer are nice. That makes it tough, sometimes, to have to be honest in our assessments.

But, back to Arena: This was in contrast to a lot of our colleagues who despised him from day one, to be honest. and not without good reason. Arena never suffered fools gladly but he made the mistake of trying to humiliate people who asked serious questions as well if they somehow didn’t fit into his storyline.

Now, Pat wrote back and said “It's interesting that his image to the public was blunt, but fair. From the tone & content of your articles, he sounds more like he was an arrogant #### who didn't build partnerships and good will - but, as you put it, pissed all over everyone in American soccer. Obviously there is another side to this guy we (the public) never really saw.”

We think this is dead on. Arena cowed a lot of folks who were NOT regular “soccer writers” by humiliating them in press conferences over their lack of knowledge about the sport. However, this tactic backfired because you can’t do this to big-name writers, who have egos of their own and are liable to do things like do research and check facts before forming opinions. As a result, we think, yes, the next coach of the U.S. team is liable to have to spend a LOT of time building bridges.

Ron Oliver writes: “I agree with most of your article except for the fact that there are no good prospects coming up through the ranks. The problem is that youth soccer is corrupt. ODP teams throughout the country are chosen only from the biggest clubs that the coaches have an affiliation with. This leaves many strong young players out in the dark. Youth soccer recently has become more about how much money can I make rather than how much knowledge and understanding can I impart in my players. Many families cannot afford soccer with this attitude. MLS does nothing to help.”

(Coach) Dave Kaufmann writes: “A sense of USSF history of the last twenty years and the lack of a U.S. professional development method has to be taken into to consideration as well. All the Boras, Klinsmanns, Perreiras, etc. can not prepare a U S team to compete if we do not have the players. Our culture encourages our young to think beyond soccer, and get a degree to meet the real challenges of life. With the few exceptions of dedicated athletes like Lance Armstrong, there is no professional carrot at the end of the rainbow for our players in the US. As a USSF coach my heartful thanks to Bruce.”

Frank Dal Santo wrote: “You hit the nail on the head. We have a weak league, play in a weak FIFA conference, don’t have a consistent source of talent, and no easy way to get our few good players abroad with consistency. Is it possible to change this? Look at Australia. They had what should have been our World Cup in 2006. The major difference? Coaching. From your editorial its obvious you already get the picture. Sadly, you may be the only one who does.”

John O’ Toole wrote: “Great articles on the situation with the management of the national team. My perspective is that Arena was a poor coach and the soccer community in the US (but not all) were under the illusion that there was a “U.S. way” to play the game that was founded on the backs of the QF run in Korea. This was clearly rejected in Germany, but the signs have been there for many years. Now the management of the US team is at a crossroads - bring in a coach who will play to the strengths of the current crop of players or who will try to mold them into a more continental team. The task however may be impossible due to the fundamental issues with the game in the US. I see three:
1) A distinctly British influence on the game that is pre-Premership era (this from a Paddy who grew up watching English club football). My point here is that the British influence in coaching, etc. at the grass roots level is too much focused on Route 1 football rather than building the skills of players. This is also playing out in the Premiership where there are few English managers who are coaching at the biggest clubs and those who are are playing the traditional game with limited success.
2) Where are the Hispanic-Americans? My kids’ teams have NO hsipanics on them but they are playing on the fields (where they are allowed) the most creative football. The US team in 10 years should be at least 70% hispanic. Look at France and other countries with the percentage of non-native (right wing term) players. Currently football in America is for white middle-class people (I guess I am in this) and their kids. This is fine but I see no effort to reach out to the Hispanic community in their communities.
3) Setting the bar high or “attitude.” My example here is college soccer - all parents and players dream to get the free pass to a college education. Quite frankly it is clever but useless in developing real talent. This attitude needs to be changed all the way down the line. We need to inspire in kids that the dream is to play for the top clubs and to aggressively place our best talent in the traditional soccer development structure so they can learn. MLS right now is too weak.”

Steve Orozlan: “Bruce Arena advanced soccer in the US--plain and simple. Give him his due for what he has accomplished instead of piling on the man. Could anyone have done better in the eight years that he was at the helm? Who would have and where was he? Also let's be fair and put matters in context: the US failed to win the Gold medal in Olympics Basketball and can't win the World Baseball Classic; two of the sports that matter here, that are played at an international level and that have the talent pool. Talent, not our coaching is what is lacking in USA Soccer.”

Finally, Joshua Hess wrote: “Who was it that trumpeted the success of 2002? Who were the parties responsible for creating ridiculous expectations for an American team in the 2006 World Cup? You can even go back to the first game in 2002 against Portugal and say that the US was fortunate to win, the way Portugal came back in that game… Over the last several months I have seen so many articles written about our men's team discussing quarterfinals, semifinals or even those ridiculous FIFA rankings. I always hoped that the journalists covering the team here would try to provide the calm and reasoned assessments of the teams progress and ability over the last few years but to be honest I don't recall a large amount of it, cautiously positive with an eye on the huge misconception that we dominated in 2002. I find it frustrating that only after the team doesn't qualify for the 2nd round of the World Cup do people start remembering what really happened in 2002.”

Hey, it’s the media’s fault! What? Hess is right? A bunch of folks at publications such as Sports Illustrated, USA Today and other mainstream papers wrote silly puff pieces in the run up to the Cup? Now why would they do that? Here at Fox we wrote that the team would be lucky to get a single point. (We also mentioned the 2002 finish in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, but who’s counting?) Huh. Yes, Joshua: You’re dead right about that; some folks were downright irresponsible.

Other comments included some people who took issue with our statement that the USA drew better in 1998 than it does today. One, James Westbrook, sent in a chart seeking to disprove this. It was thoughtful and well-researched so, we’re looking again over our numbers again today. We’re pretty confident in our statement, yet, that said, if we are incorrect, we will write a clarification and credit Westbrook’s diligent math. (Which, BTW, also shows a drop in attendance, albeit smaller.)

Finally, some folks wrote in and said that the drop in attendance is due to the USA’s shifting of games from “hostile” arenas (such as L.A., Washington and New York… man, and here we thought Fox News took the coastal thing a bit far…) to smaller venues in Columbus and “Gillette” (?!) where the U.S.A. could have “home-field advantage.”

As you should gather, we don’t buy this for a second. Let’s put aside the argument that somehow Hispanics don’t support the USA team. (Try telling that to Li, BTW; she’s the most Puerto Rican Puerto Rican we know and she’s always draped in U.S. team gear, much to our chagrin.) This logic supposes that somehow those Hispanic dollars don’t count, or, more insidiously, that these folks are “stealing seats” away from happy Anglos who would show up if only they could get in and not sit next to the brown folks.

Bull. The fact is that the number of folks who follow the team has increased — but that is a reflection more of the growth of the Net and multi-channel satellite and cable — while the actual butts-in-seats count has declined. People come to some of these games and clearly don’t like what they see. Others come and decide it isn’t as good as what they can see on TV from other countries. And still others can’t get to the games because they’ve been moved out of major soccer areas under the rubric of giving the USA some home-field advantage. Some of this has to do with the chosen opponents. You don’t get to choose your WCQs, but you DO get to choose who to play in friendlies. England? A good draw in Chicago, right? But Canada? Guatemala? Jamaica? Laughable! And who chooses these games? Arena did — wasn’t he the technical director?

The bottom line here is that moving the games to smaller stadiums has contributed, sure — but the USA can’t sell out these smaller grounds either! They’ve gone from not selling out an 80,000 seat stadium to not selling out a 30,000 stadium! Folks, open your eyes here.

To be fair, this is a SOCCER problem, not just a USAMNT problem. Take a look at stagnant old MLS and the USAWNT as well.