I’ve been a fan of Liverpool Football Club since I was twelve. For more than half of my life, I have been waking up every weekend at the crack of dawn to watch eleven men half a world away kick a ball for 90 minutes. I hardly remember why my preteen self chose to adore Liverpool, not Arsenal or Manchester United or Everton. Was it the color red? Was it the cool bird in the crest? Did I flip a coin?

Actually, who am I kidding? It definitely had something to do with Michael Owen (swoon), who I saw play for England in the 2002 World Cup, when he was a Liverpool star. But really, it could have been anything. American soccer fandom, especially when it comes to those who love the European game, is distinct in its arbitrariness. People who live in Los Angeles or Cleveland or Washington love teams from places they’ve never heard of, or couldn’t locate on a map. (Leicester? Bournemouth? Newcastle?)

That arbitrariness was on show last weekend at the first-ever BlazerCon, a giant soccer convention organized by Roger Bennett and Michael Davies, who together host the NBC soccer show, Men in Blazers. (They also host a podcast of the same name.) At the two-day convention in Brooklyn, Bennett and Davies brought in speakers from around the international soccer world, including Premier League CEO Richard Scudamore, his Bundesliga counterpart Christian Seifert, Everton manager Roberto Martinez, Liverpool CEO Ian Ayre, and MLS commissioner Don Garber.