This is definitely a great day for football management game fans: Sports Interactive announced that Football Manager 2009 reached gold status and will be shipped as planned on November 14. Even more, SI and Sega will be offering fans a chance to test the game (and probably the 3D Match engine, too) by putting a demo up for grabs this Sunday, 2nd November.

There will actually be two versions of the game: a “strawberry” one (bigger file size, player photos, badges and so on included) and a “vanilla” one (only in English, only with the English and Scottish leagues and with no images featured – with a smaller file size). Both downloads will be, of course, available for free and I truly hope that SI Games is prepared for the huge wave of downloads. The demo will be available via Steam and the SI Games official website located here.

So all Football Manager fans have finally had their prayers answered: the game will not be delayed and a huge impact is expected. Just remember to visit us again since we’ll bring up a FM 2009 preview as soon as the demo is released.