Mikael Uhre asked Jim Curtin how he could do more for the Union’s attack, then scored two brilliant goals

On any soccer team, strikers are expected more than any other players to be ruthless, selfish, and frankly egotistical.

If you find one who isn’t, there’s a good chance that either they’re being nice to you — especially if there’s a TV camera nearby — or they’re going to get beaten on the depth chart by someone else.

Alex Morgan, to use American soccer’s most famous example, is unfailingly polite on all those network shows she graces. But once she steps on the field, she doesn’t hesitate to crush every opponent in her path — and let them hear about it afterward.

Union fans might similarly think that Mikael Uhre is just a nice, down-to-earth, quiet guy. Go ask the Houston Dynamo defense if they believe that, after he ran them ragged in Saturday night’s 6-0 thrashing at Subaru Park.

» READ MORE: Union crush Houston Dynamo, 6-0, led by Mikael Uhre and Dániel Gazdag

That doesn’t mean, though, that he is above being self-aware. Uhre and manager Jim Curtin revealed Saturday night that after Uhre had just 11 touches in last Saturday’s 1-0 win at Orlando, the big Dane paid an unsolicited visit to Curtin’s office to ask how he could get more involved in attacking buildups.

“I just came to Jim asked him what I could do as a player … to help the team even more,” Uhre said. “I know scoring goals is easy [as an answer], but how I could maybe be involved a bit more in the game. I think it went pretty well — I had some really good layoffs, and was a more part of the game than I’ve been the past few.”

Curtin was happy to have the visit.

“He deserves the credit for that,” he said of Uhre. “He initiated the conversation, and I think it led to some confidence and success and touching the ball more … If you’re only getting 10, 15 touches in a game, it’s hard to feel like you’re a part of it or you’re in the rhythm of things. I thought tonight was different — he found spaces, he came off the center backs, but then he also still stretched them in the in the killer moments and made them pay.”

The stats bear that out beyond the two goals. Uhre touched the ball 23 times, completed nine of his 13 passes, and won four of the five duels he contested.

“He works so hard defensively, and then we’re asking him to run in behind every time, and he feels like he’s not getting on the ball a lot,” Curtin said. “So we talked about him maybe coming off the [opposing] centerbacks a little bit, getting a few touches, connecting in possession, rather than it just being go-go-go all the time.”

» READ MORE: Alejandro Bedoya is having a renaissance with the Union at age 35

Uhre’s second goal against Houston was a great example. A steal by Kai Wagner on the Union’s end line launched a five-pass sweep down the field in which the ball went from Jack Elliott back to Wagner, then to Leon Flach, Dániel Gazdag, and Alejandro Bedoya. When Bedoya received the ball, Uhre was to the left of the center circle, 10 yards or so off the midfield line.

As Bedoya charged forward, Uhre ran behind a trio of Houston defenders. When Bedoya struck the through ball that sprung Uhre’s breakaway, Uhre was in a pocket of five orange shirts. He timed his run perfectly and nailed the shot.

Uhre’s first goal was a more traditional poacher’s finish, but with a subtle bit of class. As Olivier Mbaizo made an overlapping run up the right wing, Uhre checked back at the top of the 18-yard box. But he knew where he was going, and so did Mbaizo.

The Cameroonian whipped a pass around Houston’s Adam Lundqvist and Tim Parker as Uhre dashed between Parker and Matías Vera, and all three defenders were toast. Uhre’s finish was the cherry on top, an outside-of-the-right-foot flick past substitute Houston goalkeeper Michael Nelson.

That goal brought the combined total scored by the Union’s biggest stars — Uhre, Gazdag, and Julián Carranza — to 25. At the end of the night, it was 27, as for the first time all three players scored in the same game. The Union went undefeated in July with five wins and one tie, and MLS’s public relations department noted that the team’s plus-16 goal difference in those games was the second-highest margin for a single month in league history,.

» READ MORE: It’s surprising that Kai Wagner is still with the Union, but it also isn’t

“If you can get 30 goals between the three of them, that means we’re going to have a darn good season,” Curtin said. “We’re on our way, we’re in a good run of form. I said at halftime to the two strikers: if they work like that for us defensively, and they take away the opponents’ centerbacks and the No. 6 that’s dropped in deep — if they play like that with their pressing and running, there’s not a team in this league that can beat us. I believe that.”