A sailing holiday company has offered to cheer up England’s players after Iceland beat them on Monday by taking them on a free whale-watching day-trip.

Iceland stunned Austria to reach the knockout rounds of Euro 2016 on Wednesday, and are approaching their unexpected last-16 game against Roy Hodgson’s under-pressure team in a confident mood.

The Icelandic holiday firm have offered the soon-to-be-beaten England players a free day out in Husavik “as a bandage for wounded pride, after the loss against Iceland this coming Monday”.

North Sailing’s manager Gudbjartur Jonsson, posing with 23 free tickets for the England squad dated Tuesday 28 July, said: “It is only polite and a part of the Icelandic hospitality culture to offer the free tickets.

Gudbjartur Jonsson with the England squad’s consolation prize.

“The poor English players will anyways not be able to return immediately to England after the match on Monday, as 60 million English football fans will be furious when losing to a small island state with only 300,000 inhabitants.

“Therefore we offer a peaceful day with whale-watching in a small town in Northern Iceland with beautiful nature and nice people. That should be the perfect compensation.”

Meanwhile, the Iceland midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson has said all the expectation is on England’s shoulders. “We have no pressure on us, that’s the main thing. If you look at England, if they were to lose to us there will be headlines.

“We are aware that we are probably the second team everyone supports in the tournament. We are a small nation that nobody expects anything of so we want to keep those people happy and go a little bit further.”