Argentina–Brazil football rivalry as the "hand of the devil", a reference to the controversial goal scored by Diego Maradona in the 1986 World Cup against England. Argentina was winning 2–1, but in a spectacular turn of events, Adriano scored a goal in the last minute of the match, taking the match to penalties, where Brazil won with Júlio César stopping an impossible shot from Andrés D'Alessandro. Brazil was playing with its second-string team and this victory could be considered an underdog one. In 2005, Brazil and Argentina participated in the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup. Brazil entered the competition as the reigning World Cup
God Hand contained some comic relief, the team decided to integrate a large amount of comedy into the game based on the viewers' reactions. Inaba stated that "God Hand" is "aimed at hardcore gamers," which is shown in its hard difficulty. Unlike "Viewtiful Joe" and "Ōkami", the design team had no particular goal when designing the graphical style of "God Hand" other than that they wanted it to look more realistic. Although "God Hand" appears to share many elements with manga and anime such as "Fist of the North Star" and "MD Geist", none were actually used as inspiration for the game.