His appeal has stretched outside the football world, with singer/songwriter (and well-known A.S. Roma fan) Antonello Venditti, dedicating a song called "La coscienza di Zeman" (Zeman's conscience, a play-on-words on the famous Italian novel "La coscienza di Zeno") to him. Zeman was also the "guru" who inspired the character Frengo by Italian comedian Antonio Albanese. He was also the subject for a number of biopics, mostly covering his early Foggia years, such as "Zemanlandia". Zeman is also known for being a heavy smoker and an iconic man of very few words with a cult following throughout Italy that goes across all football rivalries.