Michael Davies and Roger Bennett, better known to American soccer fans as Men in Blazers, spend their days in an almost comically cramped studio in lower Manhattan. There they produce a weekly podcast ostensibly about soccer and a half-hour highlight show for NBC Sports. But last weekend they ventured out to Brooklyn to meet their fans, who’d gathered for a celebration of soccer that the Men in Blazers had dubbed BlazerCon. The two often call soccer “America’s sport of the future—as it has been since 1972”; BlazerCon was organized on the notion that this future had finally arrived.

More than a thousand people from sixteen states and across Europe showed up at the Brooklyn Expo Center, in Greenpoint, to hear Davies and Bennett interview players, TV commentators, club owners, and coaches, and to hear them make self-deprecating jokes about being bald or being English. Attendees could challenge professional soccer players (Dax McCarty and Shaun Wright-Phillips, of the New York Red Bulls) to a round of fifa 16, a popular video game; get a haircut in the style of their favorite international footballer (“An Olivier Giroud, please!”); or have a “Men in Blazers” patch sewn on their own blazer. Topps, the baseball-card company, had a booth selling soccer cards.

When Bennett moved to the States, in 1993, soccer was, he said, “worse than irrelevant—it was reviled.” Now the networks broadcast English Premier League matches. One fan arrived wearing the uniform of the Columbus Crew, the team he grew up supporting, back in Ohio: short-sleeved jersey, shorts, and knee socks, all yellow. He was a “full-kit wanker,” a species rarely seen in the wild. “It’s a real commitment,” he said, patting his sides. “No pockets.” He carried his phone and a coat in a shopping bag.

Another young man, Brett Harman, who’d travelled from Trenton, New Jersey, explained that he’d decided which team to support by playing FIFA, the video game. He often played as the legendary Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko, and when Shevchenko left A.C. Milan for Chelsea he followed. Now Harman is a Chelsea devotee and hopes one day to see the team play at Stamford Bridge, their stadium in London. He wore a Frank Lampard jersey, with a pillow stuffed under his shirt. It was an inside joke, he said, one that the Men in Blazers would certainly understand.

Backstage, mingling in the greenroom, were heads of foreign leagues, chairmen of various English Premier League sides, television sports personalities, three members of the World Cup-winning American Women’s National Team, and Sunil Gulati, the head of the U.S. Soccer Federation. Also in attendance: Charlie Wallwork, age eleven, who’d been invited by Davies and Bennett and had flown from Manchester, England. Charlie rocketed to fame about a year ago, when he was interviewed after a match outside Old Trafford, Manchester United’s stadium. His spontaneous post-game analysis was succinct and heartfelt. “We played like eleven players who were all best friends!” he said, looking directly into the camera.

“The video went viral,” Wallwork explained backstage. He was preparing to speak about his experience to more than a thousand fellow-fans, most of them three times his age. Wallwork wore a No. 7 Man. U. jersey, with “Charlie is a Red” emblazoned on the back, and a red cast on his left arm. He offered two explanations for his injury: either he landed wrong after scoring an overhead kick in the schoolyard or he fell off the jungle gym.

The convention began on Friday, just as the news from Paris was beginning to filter out and the scale of the horror was becoming clear. Bennett and Davies began the proceedings by calling for a moment of silence. Both were shaken by the news, but the relentless schedule didn’t leave much room for reflection. During the final presentation, Bennett and Davies were past the point of exhaustion, fumbling with their cue cards, stammering, falling apart as charmingly as they could manage. Bennett mentioned Paris, choking up, and Davies told the crowd, “Now the sport is more important than ever.” Three suicide bombers had attacked the Stade de France, after all, where the multiracial, multi-ethnic French national team won the World Cup, in 1998. From amid the crowd of soccer fans, a voice called out, “_Allez les Bleus! _” ♦