Korea up one spot in FIFA rankings at No. 56

South Korea has moved one spot up to rank No. 56 in the world, the latest FIFA ranking announced on Thursday showed.

The April rankings of FIFA showed that the South Korea men's football team is ranked third best in Asia, just one notch above their archrival Japan.

Iran was the top-ranked country in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) at No. 42 followed by Australia, which moved up from No. 67 to 50.

Saudi Arabia was the fifth-highest-ranked Asian country at No. 60, followed by Uzbekistan (No. 66), the United Arab Emirates (No.68) and China (No. 81). North Korea was ranked No. 112 in the April rankings, down 18 steps from last month.

South Korea will be second seed in the final Asian qualifying round for the 2018 FIFA World Cup along with Japan.

For the final round, the AFC said it will seed the 12 qualifiers based on their April FIFA rankings. The region's top two nations receive the first seeds and will be placed in different groups, the next two Asian countries in the FIFA rankings get the second seeds, and so forth.

Meanwhile, Argentina topped the latest FIFA ranking, pushing Belgium to second place. Chile was No. 3 followed by Colombia, Germany and Spain.

FIFA rankings are based on the average number of points that a team accumulates over a four-year period. The ranking points in each match are determined by its result, its value and the relative strength of the opponent and their confederation. The system also has a yearly basis depreciation for the value of the matches. (Yonhap)