I think money is always a question of comparison.
The guy who earns 20,000 a year thinks 100,000 a year is just huge, the 100,000 guy wants to earn the 200,000 of his boss and thinks the 20,000 guy is quite poor, while in some other part of the world for some other guy the idea of earning 20,000 a year is too much to even imagine. Messi earns an incredible amount of money, knows that's a lot, but probably thinks that he deserves it in comparison to the sheikh he just met, who just owns a club, doesn't risk his bones each week and has like x-times what he has. The star cyclist probably thinks Messi's money is insane in comparison to his 2-5 million, because his sport is way more dangerous and demanding.
It's not really about what you need, is it? How much do you need? For what?
(One big house in Munich and the million is "gone", well not gone, but one or two million aren't the kind of money where you need to start buying Pollocks and private jets to get rid of some of your money.)
((One really big economic crisis and a political change and "enough money for your children and children's children" is out of the window, anyway.))
I think we all have an idea what an "average" salary looks like, and what "enough" is, but as we start to be around a different kind of people, with a different kind of salary, that idea changes.
What I want to say: I don't think questions like these are about what you need to live a life without financial headaches. For most people it's about appreciation, and about getting what you think you deserve.
Personally, in a situation like Almeida's, I'd always rate the sportive perspective a lot, lot higher than the money, because, really, if you care about financial security, you should probably not even think about becoming a pro athlete, at least not without a prior education...
You become a pro athlete because you are chasing goals and maybe even some kind of fame.
(Then we probably have to take into consideration how young some of these guys are and that what a certain sum means or what you want to do later in your life is even harder to decide by then.)