Too flaming late, the bluntness of the message had robbed me of the very reason why anyone bothers with sport.
I had to watch the replay later that day knowing the unthinkable had happened and then, predictably, finding out hours later England manager (coach) Roy Hodgson was history after the "Three Lions" had purred like pussycats in the 2-1 defeat.
To his credit, Hodgson wasn't going to pussyfoot around the humiliation which mirrored England's vote to exit the European Union only days before.
The difference was the England team's exit was an eviction notice, not a mob rule's vote, albeit disguised as a slim majority in a "democratic" ritual.
The nation is not divided on this occasion. Masses were left baying for the blood of everyone from coach to the baggage handler.
In fact, I had jokingly suggested to a fellow Napier South teammate in our fourth grade competition in Hawke's Bay last Saturday that I would laugh my head off if Iceland beat England in the Euro quarterfinals.
"It's a dream draw, playing the weakest team in the competition," one said with a beaming smile as England were on track to play Portugal but Iceland's late goal paved the way for a supposedly easier path.
I don't know now. I'll have to put on a sympathetic face so as not to come across disrespectful to the "mother nation".
By the end of this week, once reality sinks in, I'll be expecting every Englishman to have resigned to the fact that they haven't been a force in the beautiful game for some time. The sweet chariot was always swinging low.
The signs were always there and I'm not talking about the nation's inability to finish in a respectable position at a Fifa World Cup in exactly half a century.
In the early stages of the Euro, English hooligans had left Germany licking their wounds after coming off second best to the Russian thugs on the streets.
England's European Championship misery continues having not won a knock-out game in the competition since Euro 1996. Photo / AP/Thanassis Stavrakis
On Tuesday, the irate English fans vented their fury on their footy ambassadors via social media, demanding in myriad dialects that players such as Wayne Rooney, "Dele" Alli, Raheem Sterling, Daniel Sturridge, Jack Wilshere and Jamie Vardy and co follow Hodgson out of the team.
The goalkeeper was culpable, just as he had been against Wales when a Gareth Bale freekick feebly slipped through his grasp and trickled into the net.
It's far too easy to crucify the keeper when the ball has come past 10 others in front of him.
The sad reality is England just doesn't have the talent base and depth to make wholesale changes in a country where the game is tailor made to whet the appetite of TV viewers on the foundation of obscenely-paid foreign players.
It makes a mockery of a Fifa world ranking that places them at No11, ahead of Italy and the Netherlands.
For the record Iceland, a country of 330,000 - smaller than the number of inhabitants in Christchurch - are ranked 34th and have reportedly more volcanoes than footballers. They beat a nation of 45 million with its foreigner-heavy but lucrative EPL.
Their coach, Heimir Hallgrimsson, is giving away a part-time job as a dentist to mentor the "ssons" and "ssens" in an unheralded Nordic squad compared with the 3.5 million Hodgson earned.
But, you see, all these sorts of romantic and sentimental notions detract from some harsh realities that the footballing world will be oblivious to simply because they don't have the clout to demand TV air time.
Iceland beat the Dutch twice late last year in qualifying for the Euro Championship.
They drew with Portugal and Hungary and beat Austria in the group stage.
Perhaps the most telling factor on the emergence of the "underdogs" is that they have employed Icelandic coaches, with majority of them holding Uefa B licences.
Their attitude to developing players is something even codes in New Zealand can learn from because passion is indubitably a stronger denomination than sterling.
Even girls train with boys until they are 16 when juxtaposed with a relatively affluent nation that still goes on about David Beckham and can't help itself creating cardboard super heroes such as Rooney.
Yes, it definitely smacks of a James "Buster" Douglas decking Mike Tyson-type upset or Japan beating the Springboks in the Rugby World Cup.
Is it therefore more tragic than Lionel Messi, as captain, retiring from Argentina duties after missing a penalty in the world's best team's lottery loss to Chile in the Copa final this week?
Goodness no.
Try removing the inflated expectations of deluded English fans and the media hype of a team that failed to top their group and you'll find the result isn't so startling after all.
