Two late goals carry first-place Union past Revolution, 2-1

The Union are starting to show signs that they may be great, not just good, this season.

Mikael Uhre and Dániel Gazdag powered a thunderous response from a goal down to lead the Union to a 2-1 victory over the New England Revolution on Saturday night at Subaru Park.

Uhre and Gazdag, two of the team’s three best attackers, channeled a rallying cry that manager Jim Curtin used in previous seasons about what it takes to be a great team at the top of the Eastern Conference and Major League Soccer, and not just a good team in the middle of the standings.

The Union needed to provide a response in the final 30 minutes after Gustavo Bou brilliantly struck a shot into the top right corner of the net for New England in the 61st minute.

Bou’s seventh goal in eight games came off a 15-pass sequence that ended with the striker drifting into space in the penalty box to finish off a cross from Brandon Bye.

Curtin responded immediately by placing Uhre and captain Alejandro Bedoya into the game. Cory Burke and Olivier Mbaizo followed shortly after to provide attacking reinforcements.

The moves paid off as the Union dictated the pace of the game and earned a corner that resulted in Uhre’s sixth goal in nine games.

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Uhre leaped in the middle of the box and saw his header go into a wide-open net after New England goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic poorly timed Kai Wagner’s corner and left no one on the goal line.

Wagner’s assist was his 27th, moving him to third on the club’s all-time list behind Cristian Maidana and Sebastien Le Toux.

Gazdag’s game-winning goal four minutes later sent shakes through the Subaru Park rafters, as he struck a flush penalty kick into the top of the net.

The Hungarian midfielder earned the penalty kick after defender Henry Kessler bundled over him in the penalty area.

The final 11 minutes and six more of stoppage time did not go easily for the Union. They needed Jakob Glesnes to head a shot from Bou off the line in the 93rd minute.

The Union’s victory wrapped up a stretch of three wins and nine points in eight days to move to 39 points and remain in first place in the Eastern Conference ahead of next Saturday’s trip to Orlando City.

Major League Soccer fined Union sporting director Ernst Tanner on Saturday for his recent criticism of how Los Angeles FC signed Welsh star Gareth Bale without making him a Designated Player.

LAFC signed Bale using Targeted Allocation Money, a pot of cash teams have to sign players for more than the maximum standard salary without them being DPs. The maximum TAM-based salary is around $1.6 million.

Since Bale earned about $38 million at his last club, Spanish superpower Real Madrid, his move to L.A. is a staggering pay cut.

Soon after Bale arrived, Tanner was interviewed by the German soccer magazine Kicker on a wide range of subjects. Bale was one of them.

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“To be honest, I feel a bit fooled,” Tanner said in German. “It takes a lot of good faith for that … Innocent until proven guilty of course. But Bale made $38m before tax playing for Real Madrid and could have earned many times more in England than his official salary here. Why is he giving up so much? I don’t think the market in Europe is that damaged.”

Those words got the attention of LAFC, which signed Bale less than a year after MLS hammered Inter Miami with more than $4 million in fines for flouting salary rules.

“If there’s anybody that knows me and anybody who knows our owners, anybody who knows these players, anybody who knows these representatives, the accusation or, at best, the implication is not something we’ll take lightly,” LAFC general manager John Thorrington told ESPN.

The league paid attention. Although the fine was undisclosed, the announcement of the sanction was sharply worded.

Tanner, the announcement said, was fined “for comments made to media that called into question, without factual basis, the integrity of Major League Soccer and Los Angeles Football Club. Those comments were without merit and are in violation of the league’s public criticism policy.”

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Last Wednesday, Tanner gave a statement to ESPN in which he said: “Several parts of the various quotes were not in response to the question that is printed and was not represented in the manner I intended. I said in the interview, and will reiterate again, that I believe everything was done in compliance.”

But it didn’t save his wallet.

Staff writer Jonathan Tannenwald contributed to this article.