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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 more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. 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.
译文：如果看一下2006年世界杯赛的所有参加足球运动员的出生证明，你极有可能会发现一个值得注意的奇怪现象：球队中的精英运动员大多是出生在上半年，而不是下半年。如果你再看一下为世界杯和职业联赛输送人才的欧洲各国的国家青年队，你会发现这种奇怪的现象更加明显。
点睛：这两个句子都是虚拟语气。第一句的主干为you would…find a…quirk，其前面是虚拟条件句，冒号后面的句子elite soccer players.是前面宾语quirk的同位语．这个同位语从句的主干为elite soccer players are more likely to have been born...than in...。第二句的主干为you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced，其中宾语为this strange phenomenon，不定式结构to be even more pronounced为宾语补足语。在第二个句子的条件从句中包含了一个定语从句that feed the World Cup and professional ranks．修饰the European national youth teams。birth certificate意为“出生证”。certificate是“证明书”。noteworthy意为“值得注意，引人注意的”。quirk意为“怪癖；怪事，巧合”，在句中表示“奇怪的现象”。elite意为“精英，杰出人士”。feed的基本义是“喂养，饲养”，在本句中引申为“输送”。
n. 现象，迹象，(稀有)事件
