While Arsenal has now qualified for the Champions League in 15 consecutive years, defending Ligue 1 champions, Montpellier, will be making its first appearance in the competition when the two teams meet on Tuesday in Group B play.

How’s that for contrast?

The visiting Gunners come into this match red hot, having won their last two matches by a combined score of 8-1 while remaining undefeated in Premier League play. The same cannot be said for the home side, who have lost three of five matches to start the Ligue 1 campaign and have looked nothing short of a mess at times.

Still, this one promises to be a well-played, evenly matched affair. Let’s take a closer look at this intriguing Champions League clash.

Where: Stade de la Mosson, Montpellier, France

When: Tuesday, September 18 at 2:45 p.m. ET

Watch: FOX Soccer Plus, FOX Soccer 2Go, Arsenal Player

Most Important Player to Watch: Olivier Giroud, Arsenal

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

If he plays, he’s the guy you’ll want to watch. The former Montpellier striker helped lead the side to a Ligue 1 title last season and was sold to Arsenal in the summer.

But, he’s struggled thus far for the Gunners, failing to score and missing on several excellent opportunities. His positioning and effort have been good, but he’s obviously pressing and flailing at his attempts.

Still, a match at his old home stadium could do him good. While I’m sure he would have liked to score his first goal for the Gunners earlier in the season, doing so against his old side in the Champions League would certainly be sweet.

Key Matchup: Montpellier Attack vs. Arsenal Defense

Alex Livesey/Getty Images

In a surprising twist from last season, it has been the Gunners’ defense that has been its strongest unit. The team has conceded just one goal in four league games, allowing the Gunners to salvage two ties to open the season while the attack found a rhythm after the departure of Robin van Persie.

Scoring hasn’t necessarily been a huge problem for Montpellier—the eight goals they’ve conceded after five games is a bigger worry than the six they’ve scored—but Giroud‘s replacement up top, Emmanuel Herrera, has yet to gel with his teammates or find the flow of the attack.

The Gunners have been stingy this year, so if Herrera is a non-factor, Montpellier are going to struggle to find the back of the net in this one.

What They’re Saying

Montpellier is a bit of a mess to start the season. Herrera and the other new signings have struggled, and as Tom Williams of Pitchside Europe writes, the players even seem at odds with one another early in the year:

Trepidation has taken hold in the Montpellier ranks—there was an altercation between Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa and Marco Estrada after Friday’s game, and the players have been instructed not to talk to the media. René Girard has been at a loss to explain his side’s shortcomings. “I’m very disappointed. I’m not used to blaming my players, but what’s happening to us at the moment is quite distressing,” said the Montpellier coach on Friday. “It’s the first time that I find myself asking lots of questions. We’ve lost our values. I’m choosing my words carefully, but we can be ashamed of ourselves tonight.”

Prediction

Arsenal haven’t been very good away from home in the Champions League proper, winning just three matches (to eight losses and two ties) when they travel.

But given Montpellier‘s recent struggles—and the fact that Arsenal is the more talented team on paper—it’s hard to bet against the Gunners. Arsenal won’t keep the clean sheet in Montpellier, but they escape with the win, 2-1.

Hit me up on Twitter—my tweets are still in the Heisman race.

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY |
Mon Sep 17, 2012 10:52am EDT

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A Vatican scandal will get an unusually public airing next week when the butler who served the pope’s meals and helped him dress goes on trial for leaking Benedict’s private papers in the hope of cleaning up what he saw as “evil and corruption everywhere in the Church”.

The case, which led to the most serious crisis of Benedict’s papacy, involves the disclosure of sensitive documents alleging corruption in the Vatican and pointing to a power struggle at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church.

Paolo Gabriele, a 46-year-old father-of-three living a simple but comfortable life in the city-state, told investigators after his arrest in May that he believed a shock “could be a healthy thing to bring the Church back on the right track”.

The trusted manservant said he had acted because he wanted to help root out the corruption “because the pope was not sufficiently informed”, according to details made public when Gabriele was indicted in August.

Gabriele will go on trial on September 29 alongside Claudio Sciarpelletti, a Vatican computer expert, the Vatican said, and could be jailed for up to six years if found guilty of the charge of aggravated theft.

The Vatican for its part has called the revelations a “brutal” attack on the pope, while Benedict himself has merely alluded to personal pain, and criticized a media portrayal of the Vatican that “does not correspond to reality”.

LETTERS FROM ARCHBISHOP

Gabriele is accused of stealing the letters from Benedict’s desk and leaking them to reporters. His arrest capped nearly five months of intrigue and suspense as a string of documents and private letters found their way into the Italian media.

The most notorious of the letters were written to the pope by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, currently the Vatican’s ambassador to Washington, who was deputy governor of the Vatican City at the time.

In one, Vigano complains that when he took office in 2009, he discovered corruption, nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of contracts to outside companies at inflated prices.

Vigano later wrote to the pope about a smear campaign against him by other Vatican officials who were upset that he had taken drastic steps to clean up the purchasing procedures.

Despite begging not to be moved away from the Vatican, Vigano was later transferred to Washington by Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s number two.

Other leaked letters concerned the Vatican’s bank, which has been at the center of several scandals in the last few decades.

It is not clear how long the trial, which the Vatican said will be covered by a journalists’ pool in a small courtroom, could last. Since the papal state has no prison, Gabriele would serve time in an Italian jail unless the pope pardons him.

Sciarpelletti is being tried on lesser charges of aiding and abetting the theft.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

The iPhone 5 release date is still several days away, and customers are already camping out in NYC, according to a September 16 report from CNN Money. These people will be waiting in line for five more days to get the next generation iPhone from Apple. Experts believe that this new phone will spur record lines around the globe.

Interestingly, the people who are camping out around the world are doing it for more than just an iPhone 5, which goes on sale on Friday, September 21 at 8 a.m. There are two men camping out near the Apple store at Covenant Garden in London. They hope to raise money for cancer research in the U.K.

Meanwhile, the six people in line in front of the iconic Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City also have reasons in addition to owning the newest iGadget. The first two people in NYC arrived a full eight days before the iPhone 5 release date. They are there to promote Vibe, which is a social media startup. They hope that the publicity they gain from camping out will put their new business on the map.

The third and fourth people in line were actually the first two people in line for the iPhone 4S. They are Jessica Mellow, 27, and Keenen Thompson, 22. In addition to blogging about the experience, the pair is being paid and sponsored by Gazelle, a company that buys old iPhones in advance of new releases.

The next three people in line also got sponsored by Gazelle, so they will each get a free iPhone 5. Two of the people are musicians named Brian Ceballo, 18, and Joseph Cruz, 19 who hope to gain exposure with the publicity surrounding the iPhone 5 release date. Jackie Lin, 15, originally planned to sell his spot in line to somebody else who wanted it but didn’t have time to stand in line for it. However, now that he’s getting a free iPhone 5, he will stay in line and keep the new phone for himself.

Have you ever stood in line for an Apple gadget’s release? Who knew this could be a place to end up getting a good deal? The people who got sponsored for Gazelle are certainly getting a lot of freebies. Hopefully the guys in London raise plenty of money for cancer.

Richard Doherty, an independent tech analyst at Envisioneering Group said,

“I’d recommend consumers skip the carrier stores on Friday because they’ll try to upsell you on services, and the line will go really slow. They might find more satisfaction at a retailer.”

That sounds like some good advice, and you will make sure you don’t buy additional products or services you do not need. Do you plan to wait in line for the iPhone 5 this week? If so, when will you join the line? Can you believe the lines started eight days early?

(CNN) — The rush to be the first kid on the block with the latest iPhone is on.

At midnight on Thursday, the new iPhone 5 became available for pre-order online though the Apple, Verizon, Sprint and ATT sites. On Friday, major online outlets had already moved their estimated shipping dates back, indicating a large volume of orders or limited supply of iPhones ready to ship next Friday, September 21.

In the U.S., Apple says new iPhones pre-ordered online now will ship in two to three weeks. ATT is estimating that all versions of the iPhone 5 — black and white; 16GB, 38GB and 64GB — will start shipping in 14 to 21 business days, which is the first week of October. Verizon is listing its delivery date as Friday, September 28.

As of this writing, Sprint was the only outlet still posting the September 21 shipping date, and that was only for the two larger models. The 16GB iPhone 5′s shipping date is listed as “up to two weeks.”

The shipping times began shifting back just an hour after the phones first became available, according to the MacRumors blog.

Apple and other outlets are not yet sharing numbers for how many units have been pre-ordered. AA Verizon spokesperson told CNN only that “Dates are based on order volumes so customers have a realistic expectation as to when they will get their new iPhone 5.”

An Apple spokesperson told AllThingsD that the company was “blown away” by the response.

Eager iPhone fans who simply must get an iPhone on day-one might have better luck with one of the stores offering in-store pre-orders. Best Buy isn’t taking orders for the iPhone 5 online before its Sept 21 launch, but customers can go into a Best Buy location to pre-pay for the device and return to pick it up on launch day. The advanced difficulty level — standing up, getting dressed, leaving the house, commuting to a Best Buy — might mean less competition for pre-order units. A Best Buy in San Francisco had between 40 an 50 people walk into pre-order the iPhone 5 on Friday.

Walmart is also offering in-store pre-orders for the first time, Bloomberg reported, but it appears the retail giant is only offering the 16GB iPhone 5, not the larger capacity versions.

There’s also the often overlooked Radio Shack. Radio Shack locations are taking pre-orders, but the locations usually only get a small number of units on the first day.

Target typically carries the iPhone, but at this time the site makes no mention of the iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S is still listed as available.

A final option is to wait in line on September 21 to buy a unit. iPhone launch days tend to draw lines of enthusiastic Apple fans to Apple stores around the country, many camping out overnight. Some entrepreneurial types offer their line-standing services on Craigslist, making as much as a few hundred dollars holding the spot for someone else.

(CNN) — The rush to be the first kid on the block with the latest iPhone is on.

At midnight on Thursday, the new iPhone 5 became available for pre-order online though the Apple, Verizon, Sprint and ATT sites. On Friday, major online outlets had already moved their estimated shipping dates back, indicating a large volume of orders or limited supply of iPhones ready to ship next Friday, September 21.

In the U.S., Apple says new iPhones pre-ordered online now will ship in two to three weeks. ATT is estimating that all versions of the iPhone 5 — black and white; 16GB, 38GB and 64GB — will start shipping in 14 to 21 business days, which is the first week of October. Verizon is listing its delivery date as Friday, September 28.

As of this writing, Sprint was the only outlet still posting the September 21 shipping date, and that was only for the two larger models. The 16GB iPhone 5′s shipping date is listed as “up to two weeks.”

The shipping times began shifting back just an hour after the phones first became available, according to the MacRumors blog.

Apple and other outlets are not yet sharing numbers for how many units have been pre-ordered. AA Verizon spokesperson told CNN only that “Dates are based on order volumes so customers have a realistic expectation as to when they will get their new iPhone 5.”

An Apple spokesperson told AllThingsD that the company was “blown away” by the response.

Eager iPhone fans who simply must get an iPhone on day-one might have better luck with one of the stores offering in-store pre-orders. Best Buy isn’t taking orders for the iPhone 5 online before its Sept 21 launch, but customers can go into a Best Buy location to pre-pay for the device and return to pick it up on launch day. The advanced difficulty level — standing up, getting dressed, leaving the house, commuting to a Best Buy — might mean less competition for pre-order units. A Best Buy in San Francisco had between 40 an 50 people walk into pre-order the iPhone 5 on Friday.

Walmart is also offering in-store pre-orders for the first time, Bloomberg reported, but it appears the retail giant is only offering the 16GB iPhone 5, not the larger capacity versions.

There’s also the often overlooked Radio Shack. Radio Shack locations are taking pre-orders, but the locations usually only get a small number of units on the first day.

Target typically carries the iPhone, but at this time the site makes no mention of the iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S is still listed as available.

A final option is to wait in line on September 21 to buy a unit. iPhone launch days tend to draw lines of enthusiastic Apple fans to Apple stores around the country, many camping out overnight. Some entrepreneurial types offer their line-standing services on Craigslist, making as much as a few hundred dollars holding the spot for someone else.