The harsh reality of trying to win the CONCACAF Gold Cup

The Gold Cup is a different kind of hard.

That much the United States men's national team learned anew on Tuesday in a thin 2-1 win over Honduras in its opener of the 2015 edition of the regional championship.

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It isn't the World Cup, exactly. And the level of play isn't what you'd see in the European Championship or the Copa America, either. Even the African Cup of Nations might do better on that score. But while two countries – the U.S. and Mexico – have dominated the Gold Cup since it began in 1991, combining to win 11 of 12 editions, that fact disguises the degree of difficulty of winning this tournament.

Ahead of Tuesday's game, Jurgen Klinsmann acknowledged that the task was tall – towered over him and his players, in fact. While the USA is expected to win this thing – as Mexico is by its own fans and countrymen – the path to the July 26 final in Philadelphia will be perilous.

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"We want to win this competition badly," Klinsmann told FOX Sports 1 before kickoff. "The start is always tricky. It's difficult against a team like Honduras. They're very, very difficult to play against."

The thing is, every game is tricky. Because every opponent is very, very difficult to play against.

What they lack in quality, the CONCACAF opponents more than make up for in savvy, physicality and gamesmanship. They know the Americans ever so well, facing them again and again in qualifiers or this very tournament. They know where to pressure them on the field, when to punch, when to counter-punch. The games become tactical games of chess. They become exhausting.

There is no shortage of teams in the Gold Cup who will play the U.S. aggressively yet negatively. Few teams will play the Americans straight up, instead bunkering in and forcing them to find little cracks and seams to squeeze the play through.

Every single game in this tournament is a slog, made worse by suspect referees who tend to overlook hard fouls. Somehow, it took almost the entire game for a Honduran player to be booked with a yellow card on Tuesday, even as Clint Dempsey, scorer of both U.S. goals, was kicked every which way as many of his peers were.

Then there are the other factors – the heat, the humidity, the miles. After playing in Frisco, Texas, just outside of Dallas, the USA will play its group stage games in Foxborough, Mass. and Kansas City, Kan. Then, presumably, await a quarterfinal bout in Baltimore, a semifinal in Atlanta and a final in Philadelphia. None of those towns will give them a respite from the scorching and squelching summer weather, nor are any of them particularly close together in the order the Americans will visit them in.

Now also consider the quick turnarounds between games. If the Yanks reach the final, they will have played six times in 20 days. That actually gives them the most favorable schedule, by the way. If Mexico or anyone else from Group C reaches the tournament's pinnacle, they will have played their six games in just 18 days. But all the same, the schedule's pace is brutal, especially when you consider the aforementioned travel and temperatures.

Which is all to say that you have to grade the USA on something of a lowered curve at the Gold Cup. Tuesday's win, for instance, was far from pretty but exactly the result they needed – especially when you consider that Group A rivals Panama and Haiti tied 1-1 earlier in the day. There will be a lot of that. Results garnered by whatever means necessary, games played in the service of only that result.

It's tempting to see every major tournament as some kind of referendum on the national team program and American soccer as a whole, not to mention Klinsmann, who promised a more polished and "proactive" playing style upon his appointment almost four years ago. But, realistically, there's no winning this tournament while still playing pretty soccer. Should you try, some conniving opponent or other will steal a late goal and knock you out of the tournament, however unjustly. Winning in CONCACAF has always been a different beast, reared on different priorities.

If an American national team claims a second major trophy this month, it won't be won through artistic performances. There surely won't be the soaring form and glittering goals like the women's national team delivered in a 2-0 win over Germany in the semifinals and a 5-2 pummeling of Japan in the final of the Women's World Cup.

Instead, there will probably only be hard-fought wins over well-organized and tenacious teams, in spite of prohibitive circumstances.

The Gold Cup isn't a tournament you win on style points. It's a tournament you just win.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.