Diego Lainez obtains Spanish nationality

Real Betis player, Diego Lainez, obtained Spanish nationality and announced the news through his social networks, along with his club. In this way, the player will no longer be an extra community. 

This means that Lainez will no longer occupy an extra community player place in the team, which will allow the Beticos to bring more talent to play in their team. 

The news came as a surprise to the player's fans and those of the Mexican national team, who expressed their fears on social networks that the young Mexican soccer star will no longer play for El Tri.  

Lainez received Spanish citizenship after a year of paperwork, and now thanks to this document he will be able to obtain better opportunities to play in Europe. 

New opportunities for Lainez with his new Spanish citizenship

Getting to play in Europe as a extra community citizen is a serious obstacle for a player to have a promising career in an important team since each club has the opportunity to register only 3 players with an extra community passport.

And normally this resource is used in world-class elements, or players who arrive already consolidated, very different from what many young Mexican players experience when they emigrate looking for an opportunity.

The benefits of receiving one of the citizenships of the countries of the European Union for a soccer player are not to occupy a place as a foreigner and to have the facility to move around the European Union without the need of having a visa.

This opens more possibilities for young talents to seek space and minutes in teams that have already filled their spaces for extra community players. 

Lainez finally obtained Spanish nationality after joining Betis more than three years ago, the club that signed him in 2019, with a contract that expires until 2024. 

The club paid $15 million for the player to Club America, the institution that trained the midfielder. 

Lainez's lack of games at Betis is due to injury

The player has had a complicated season at the Spanish club, due to his injury at the Olympic Games. 

Manuel Pellegrini, the club's Chilean coach, has stated that it is precisely this injury that has prevented him from fielding the Mexican. 

He explained this when asked why the Mexican has not played for the team recently. 

"Because there are 25 players in the squad because it is a place that is also covered with Rodri, Rober, Joaquín, unfortunately for Diego he had quite a long ankle injury from which he is recovering". 

"As a coaching staff, if we see that he is at an important level, he will have his chance, for now, like all the players, he will have to work and when the time comes for him to prove himself", said Pellegrini to Marca, in a press conference.

The injury has been very detrimental to Diego Lainez, as the few minutes he has had with the Spanish club and his lack of rhythm were the main reason why Gerardo Martino did not call him up for Mexico's last FIFA qualifiers.