Napoli dominated the early stages and deservedly went ahead when the home time sliced through the Madrid defence and Dries Mertens fired low past Keylor Navas. Mertens also hit a post during a wide open first half, with Cristiano Ronaldo striking the woodwork at the other end.

But soon after half-time, Ramos rose to head a Toni Kroos corner to the net, and then repeated the feat six minutes later (although UEFA awarded the second header as a Mertens own-goal) to put his side in full control of the tie, with substitute Alvaro Morata firing in his side's third in added time.

Of Ramos' 21 goals since the 2014 Champions League final, 18 have come when Madrid were losing or tied, but the centre-back told Spanish TV station MEGA that recently he was being "killed" by his critics so he would not get too carried away with what had happened tonight.

"I am just happy that we achieved our objective, which was to go through," Ramos said. "It was my 100th game in the competition, and I was able to help the team with goals when we were going through a delicate moment.

"A week ago the critics were killing me. Today I am not a hero for scoring two goals. I try not to get too carried away, and do my job as well as I can."

Told by a reporter that UEFA had decided that Mertens touch on his second header had been decisive and it was going down as own-goal, Ramos looked shocked.

"I don't believe it!," he reacted. "They took away my double!"

Zinedine Zidane's side have gone through a dodgy run of form in La Liga lately, losing top spot to Barcelona after dropping points against Valencia and Las Palmas. Ramos admitted that he and his teammates were puzzled as to what had gone wrong tactically.

"We suffered a lot in first half," he said. "If we knew why it would be very easy to fix. Sometimes it does not go as we practice in training, or talk about before the game. But we should not get angry, we must just reflect about the things that went wrong.

"We were [defending] very deep and they created many chances. But I am happy with the progress to the next round."