1. If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk:elite soccer players are most likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months.

【分析】復合句。if引導的條件句用了虛擬語氣 (were);主句中冒號后的內容是對quirk的補充說明。
【譯文】如果仔細查看一下2006年世界杯聯賽每個足球運動員的出生證明，你很可能會發現一個值得注意的奇怪現象：出色的足球運動員大都在一年的頭幾個月出生而不是后幾個月。

【點撥】certificate意為“證書；證明書；憑證”，birth certificate意為“出生證”。

2. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced.

【分析】多重復合句。逗號后的部分為主句，主句是一個"主+謂+賓+賓補"結構的句子。if引導條件狀語從句，其中又包含that引導的定語從句修飾the European national youth teams。
【譯文】如果再關注一下為世界杯和專業球隊輸送人才的歐洲國家青年隊，你會發現這一奇佳現象更加明顯。

【點撥】feed的基本含義“喂，飼養；靠···為生”，但在本句中則表示“為···培養，輸送”。