The former Arsenal star, who underwent an operation to repair a torn labrum in his left hip in December, made his first appearance since captaining Sweden at last summer's European Championships in Seattle Sounders' 2-0 victory over Real Salt Lake.

Ljungberg, 31, came on in the 61st minute as the Sounders maintained their perfect start to their inaugural campaign in MLS, with a second clean sheet for Kasey Keller coming in front of a sell-out crowd of 28,548 at Qwest Field in Seattle.

"I felt great," Ljungberg said of his half-hour cameo. "It was nice to be back on the pitch. I got some nice touches on the ball. And we won the game. It was great."

The Swede, who missed the season-opening 3-0 win over New York last week, added he felt he could have played longer and expects to do so next weekend when Seattle visit unbeaten Toronto FC on Saturday.

"Yeah, I probably could have (played more) but we wanted to make sure I wouldn't have a setback after this.

"We started with 30 minutes. I felt very, very good. Like I said, it was quite nice to get some tackles as well. My hip felt great.

"We'll see later in the week how I react to the 30 minutes. But I would say, maybe 70 minutes or something, we'll try it.

"Normally, after a surgery, when you get really, really tired, that's when you can injure yourself.

"Probably, when I get really, really tired, that's when I've got to walk off. If that's 60 or 70 or 80 (minutes), we'll see how long."