Tijjani Noslin says he came close to choosing Suriname for his international future, but he is still holding out for the Nederlands elftal. In a current interview on Kick ’t Met van Ziggo Sport, the forward laid out the decision in plain terms: the move he nearly made, the dream he has not let go, and the reason he has stopped short of committing.

That matters now because Noslin is not speaking about a distant possibility. He is speaking from the point where a player has to decide whether to accept a door that is already open or wait for one that may still appear. He said he still wants Oranje, and he knows the choice depends on more than desire. A player can only be selected if someone gives him the chance, and he said that chance still has to be earned. He also made clear that he does not believe he has done enough yet to claim it.

Noslin’s case has weight because it comes after a season in which he played 29 times for Lazio, scoring four goals and adding two assists. Those numbers do not settle the debate, but they explain why the question is alive. He has shown enough to stay in view, yet not enough to convince himself that a call from the Nederlands elftal is owed to him.

He put the hesitation down to his mother. Noslin said she believed from the beginning that he would reach Oranje, and he said he has never gone against her. That is why he waited, even when he had almost made the choice for Suriname. In his telling, this was not a change of heart after rejection. It was restraint, built on family belief and the hope that patience might still be rewarded.

The unresolved part is the one that matters most. Suriname was close, Oranje remains the ambition, and nothing in his own words guarantees what comes next. Noslin has framed the decision as a matter of work, goals and standing out; until those pieces line up, the international future he wants is still just out of reach.