Angelos Charisteas began his career playing for the local Strymonikos Serron team, starting his professional career with Aris in Thessaloniki in 1997. In January of 1998, he played for Athinaikos for six months on loan, before returning to Aris within the same year.

In 2002, he was signed by Werder Bremen, where he participated in 66 matches with the German team until 2005, scoring 18 goals and winning both the Bundesliga and the German Cup.
In 2005 he moved to the Netherlands to play for Ajax, where he appeared in 31 championship matches, scoring 12 goals.

Angelos Charisteas signed with the Dutch team Feyenoord for the 2006-2007 season, where he finished the season with a total of 10 goals.

In 2007, he continued his career in Nürnberg, while in 2009 he briefly played in Bayer Leverkusen, on loan, appearing in 13 matches.

In August 2010, he had a brief stint in the French club Arles-Avignon and, in January 2011, Charisteas signed a contract with Schalke, where he played until the end of the 2010-11 season, winning the German Cup.
He returned to Greece for the 2011-12 season, to play with Panetolikos. In 2013, he moved to the United Arab Emirates to play for Al-Nassr.

He made his debut with the Greek national team on February 28, 2001.

In the final stage of the Euro 2004 campaign, he appeared on all six matches played by Greece and scored the three vital goals against Spain and France, and against Portugal in the final.
He played for the Greek national team from 2001 until 2011.