South Korea rose one notch to 34th place in the FIFA rankings for January, the world’s football governing body said Thursday.

The rankings, published on FIFA’s website, showed South Korea with a total of 687 points this month, up one point from December.

The increase was calculated from an adjustment in the weighted average of the country’s points in the past four years.

South Korea was the second-highest ranking Asian nation after Japan, which ranked 21st.

Spain, which has topped the list since September 2011, remained in first place with 1,606 points, followed by Germany and Argentina at second and third, respectively. (Yonhap News)