South American nations at the FIFA World Cup competition by FIFA, but, largely due to economic reasons, was not able to do so and officially resigned in 1982. Mexico was selected as the new host in May 1983. At the 1986 World Cup, four nations South American nations participated: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The tournament was won by Argentina (their second title, after also winning in 1978), captained by Maradona, who scored the infamous "Hand of God goal", and also a goal voted as "Goal of the Century", in the same quarter-final against England. These were two of the five goals that Maradona scored during the tournament;
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.