Upon his arrival at FC Tokyo on Tuesday, new manager Peter Cklamovski told his players that “Every day, we push each other, and I’ll push every one of you.”

On Saturday, the squad showed that it heard his message loud and clear.

Diego Oliveira’s brace handed Tokyo a 2-0 win over Nagoya Grampus at Ajinomoto Stadium on Saturday night, giving Cklamovski a win to start off his tenure at the capital club.

“I’m glad I was able to score two goals, but that was the result of what we did in training,” the Brazilian striker said. “We knew it’d be a tough game against an opponent high in the standings.

“We were able to play well under our coach’s instructions, but what’s important is continuing to improve.”

Australian Cklamovski, who replaced struggling Spaniard Albert Puig during the recent international break, credited the victory to his players’ efforts following a short week of preparations.

“All the hard work we did during the week, focusing on key principles that would win this game, they executed it diligently, worked hard, and we get to send our supporters home happy,” the 44-year-old said. “We worked on a few different topics defensively that gave us a strong structure, gave us some stability. We moved the ball around well, created some good chances and deserved the win tonight.”

The host’s defensive performance drew strong praise from Grampus manager Kenta Hasegawa, who admitted that his former club had his number.

“We were marked very tightly and couldn’t break away from it,” Hasegawa said. “Normally against Tokyo we’d be able to shake them off, but today they held on.”

Tokyo, which finished sixth under Puig last year, entered the international break in 12th with one of the league’s most porous and injury-ridden defenses. The attack has struggled to produce goals at times despite the winter arrival of midfielder Teruhito Nakagawa from Yokohama F. Marinos, and was dealt a blow with the early June departure of mercurial Brazilian striker Leandro.

But four days was enough for Cklamovski to steer his new charges to their first league win in five games, much to the delight of the Tokyo-supporting contingent among 28,636 in attendance.

“I’m super proud of the players for their effort, their work rate, (and) super proud of all the staff as well for really supporting me this week, putting good work into the week of preparation,” Cklamovski said. “I demanded a lot from the players in terms of how we prepared ... and tonight was a good lesson for us.

“We work hard, work together, stick to our game with and without the ball, and we’ll keep building to become the team we want to be.”

Cklamovski’s reputation grew during his two years as a right-hand man to compatriot Ange Postecoglou at F. Marinos, during which they captured the 2019 J1 title to end a 15-year wait at Nissan Stadium.

In 2020, the 44-year-old earned his first managerial role at Shimizu S-Pulse — only for the club to languish at the bottom of the table in a season dramatically altered by the coronavirus pandemic.

After leaving Shimizu with just three wins from 25 games, Cklamovski found a new home at second-division Montedio Yamagata ahead of the 2021 season, steering the team to seventh place and improving to sixth — and a spot in the J1 Playoff — the following year.

He was shockingly dismissed from the Tohoku club just weeks into the current season, only for a new opportunity to emerge in the J1 — where he hopes his past experiences will guide him to success.

“The positives and negatives of the past, and my history and career, I take the good and bad to learn from and keep getting better myself,” Cklamovski said. “I take that into this project to push hard with everyone at the club to put this club where I think it deserves to be.

“I guess I’m lucky because in my career I've had some hard times, and that makes me stronger.”