Brecel, 28, became the youngest player ever to compete at the Crucible in 2012 aged 17 years and 45 days. But it has taken him more than a decade to become an overnight sensation.

Speaking personally, which I often do, I wouldn’t have believed I would be rooting for the man who ended Ronnie O’Sullivan’s chance - this year - of earning a record eighth world snooker title.

But once Brecel, all domed forehead and spaniel eyes, had poured cold water on the fiery progress of The Rocket in the quarter-finals, well, he had my support. And look what he did with it - although of course much of the credit must be his.

Brecel, it should be stressed, has also reminded us when he was not at the table of two words that go together a little more readily: Belgium and beer.

"Before the tournament I was just out partying, staying up late until six or seven in the morning, playing Fifa with my friends, having drinks and not practising," Brecel told BBC Sport.

After he had beaten Wales’s three-times world champion Mark Williams 13-11 in the second round, he added: “I went home and got back at seven in the morning and then went out again that same day until five or six in the morning and was drunk as hell."

How can you not love a sportsman with that attitude? (If you’re going to tell me - please don’t bother…)

As you would hope and expect, Brecel has the game to match his off-baize attitude. Unlike his opponent in the final, the four-times world champion and manifestly misnamed Jester from Leicester, Mark Selby, Brecel is not a grinder.

To be fair, Selby, whose safety play and matchplay is masterly, excelled himself with the first maximum 147 break to be seen in a world final, and won the final frame of yesterday evening - real mental strength there after the historic high - to narrow the gap to 9-8 in the Belgian’s favour overnight.

But the Belgian didn’t bottle it. No fear. (And no beer, one assumes, but one cannot be sure.)

In response he won four frames in a row in the morning session, making centuries in three of them. 13-8. And in the interim BBC showed its assembled Shots of the Tournament. Ten of them - four of which came from Brecel, who on one of these glories bent the cue ball like a Brazilian.

Meanwhile O’Sullivan, who is essentially a gent, was full of praise for his new favourite player to watch, hoping he would win the title.

At the time of writing, that was still uncertain. But nothing can change the vivid impact Brecel has had upon his sport at the 2023 World Snooker Championship.

I just looked up famous Belgian snooker players on the Pantheon World site. In first place: Luca Brecel. That’s it.

To be fair, Julien Leclercq and Ben Mertens are two other Belgians in the game’s top 100-ranked players. Who knows whether Brecel’s brilliance will prove inspirational?

Ranked tenth in the world, and ninth seed in Sheffield, Brecel is the only man from mainland Europe in the world’s top 60. He’s not just carrying Belgium on his back, but a continent. But he’s content.

Conceding before a match against O’Sullivan in January this year that the sport won’t prosper in his country unless he delivers more, Brecel told The Times: "It’s just me at the top. That is pressure. But there’s one thing I like and it’s pressure. When I feel it I play better."

It’s always been like that for him, one supposes - ever since he won the European under-19 title.

Speaking on the eve of the final, Brecel said: "Selby is a Crucible king, it'll be a very difficult game for me and he will be the favourite.

"It is unknown territory for me so it is going to be difficult but I am looking forward to the challenge. I will just play my stuff.

"If I try to play his game I will have no chance because he is so clever in the safety department.

"He has more experience than me. I'm going to tell myself to play every frame as though it is life and death because after this there will be no tournaments for a few months so I will try to put all my energy into this.

"I still struggle to cope [with long matches] but that is why I play my game in the way I do, free-flowing and going for everything, because if I played like Selby I would struggle to win such a long game."

Even if he stayed stuck on 13 frames - which he surely won’t - Brecel has made an indelible and cherishable mark on his game in the heat of the latest Crucible.

Interviewed at lunchtime today on BBC, Brecel's dad, Carlo, was asked if he thought what his son had done at the 2023 tournament would inspire a snooker boom in Belgium. 

As his interlocutor waited with eyebrows raised, all eagerness, he responded as any sane father should. "We can only hope so....I can only be proud of him." Wise words.