CHESTER — There was a symmetry nearly four years in the making that Mikael Uhre had the most fleeting of moments to enjoy Saturday night.
It was the late winter of 2022, before the Union’s season opener against Minnesota United. Uhre had signed days before from Danish club Brondby, the latest forward touted as “the guy,” the all-caps, mid-career striker who would bring the Union to the promised land. On that crisp, February day, Uhre’s introduction to MLS featured a parka, a scarf held aloft and the River End serenading him with chants of “UH-re, Mi-kael UH-re.”
The chants were the same Saturday at Subaru Park, as Uhre was subbed off in the 58th minute and walked the perimeter of the field back to the Union’s bench. He had his goal against New York City FC.
After 32 more minutes of nervy defending, the Union would have their trophy. And Uhre — often injured, occasionally flummoxing, periodically brilliant — had that chant once more from the fans, a capstone in what may be the final weeks of his MLS tenure.
“It’s definitely special, to be able to carry that with me,” Uhre said after the Union clinched the Supporters’ Shield with a 1-0 win. “Still having them sing it, I think also speaks about, hopefully, that they like me as a player and as a person.”
That it was Uhre who clinched the Shield for the Union is a screenwriter’s flourish on a special season. Uhre is in the last year of his contract. The acquisition of Bruno Damiani for a club-record fee before the season signaled the Union’s likely intent to move on from Uhre, who turned 31 last week. The Union rarely extend contracts to players on that side of 30, and Damiani’s arrival has shunted Uhre into a peripheral role.
But twice down the stretch of the pursuit for the club’s second trophy, Uhre has been a difference-maker.
“It was giving me goose bumps,” Jakob Glesnes said. “Not just this game, but also last game as well, because Mikael has been fighting hard now for not just the last couple of weeks, but through the whole year to get here because he’s without contract after this year. He had been fighting hard, so I’m so happy for him and his family that he is standing here now with the goal, and that means so much for the club.”
In 2022, Uhre formed one-third of one of MLS’s most productive triumvirates ever, scoring 13 goals and six assists alongside Daniel Gazdag and Julian Carranza. The Union chased that high unsuccessfully in 2023 and then disastrously in 2024, resulting in a playoff miss for the first time since 2017 and the firing of coach Jim Curtin.
Uhre’s production never cratered, but nor did it blast off into the game-changing echelons hoped for. He scored nine goals in 2023, but 21 shots on target in 33 matches and more than 2,100 minutes illustrated a regular lack of influence. So does his solitary goal in more than 400 playoff minutes, and his maddening propensity for turning looks at goal into perplexing misses.
He was hardly the problem in 2024, with 10 goals and six assists, as the Union saw Carranza transfer to Holland and Tai Baribo vault into the limelight. But nor was he the solution to a flagging team.
With Baribo’s rise at the end of last year and Golden Boot candidacy to start 2025 next to Damiani, Uhre was marginalized. He went from 25 starts in 2024 and 26 in 2023 to just 15 this year, his minutes falling to 1,280.
“We’ve had a sequence and a rotation of strikers, and we’ve kind of gone with a hot hand at times,” coach Bradley Carnell said. “We’ve kind of just given faith. Tai Baribo’s rewarded us so much early on in the season, and Mikael’s always been there. He’s always been ready.”
Damiani’s arrival scrawled the writing on the wall that this would be Uhre’s last season with the Union, even as he’s built a family in Philadelphia. The uncertainty has dogged him through the campaign, but he’s maintained his Nordic calm and professional demeanor.
“You want to leave a good impression, no matter if you end up staying or you end up going,” Uhre said. “You always want to be leaving a good impression. So obviously, it was huge to score the goal, and the guys brought it home, and to lift the Shield, that was an amazing feeling.”
Uhre has six goals and six assists this season, and while the quantity is down, the quality ratcheted up.
He was part of the opening-day rally past Orlando City that set a blueprint for the season. His vintage marker in the 84th minute helped the Union win at Montreal. And he supplied a brace, the winner in the 89th, to dispatch an inferior Colorado team in late July.
Yet still, his tally was four goals and four assists before Quinn Sullivan tore his ACL in D.C. last week.
Uhre entered in the 13th minute against a team he has bludgeoned in his career. The Union players were stagnant early with Milan Iloski and Damiani paired up top. They were incandescent with Uhre stretching the field. He scored a goal, set up two more and forced an own goal.
“He stepped up in a big way,” captain Alejandro Bedoya said. “It’s not easy to come into a game when you’re not supposed to come in at 15 minutes or whatever it was down in DC. And you see him come in off the bench and make such a sudden difference right away, it’s a credit to his mentality. … It’s staying in it, staying with the game, and trusting the coaching staff, the plan that they have, is in place.”
A week later, with Baribo back from yellow-card suspension, Carnell trusted Uhre again from the start. He helped the Union solve their frequent albatross of attacking a back 3.
Saturday’s goal was equal parts fortune and forcing the issue.
Jovan Lukic jumped a pass in the middle of the field, a quintessential counterpress opportunity. His left-footed pass through a narrow crease to find Uhre was all class. Uhre created space in the channel, and he needed a deflection off a defender to wrong-foot Matt Freese. But it did the trick.
The goal offers Uhre no certainty.
At 31, he’s got years ahead of him, though those seem no likelier to occur in Philadelphia. But it does offer a gloss on his tenure. Whatever else has happened, whatever else will happen, Uhre score the goal that clinched one of two trophies in club history.
And it earns him an indelible spot in the club’s history.
“This season especially, has been ups and down,” he said. “So it’s good to make my mark, and really happy for all of the guys today.”
Source: Berkshire mont