Win/Loss ultimately matter in the levels of competition starting around U13~U14 (for boys, it may be earlier for girls but not clear because those that get recruited that early is actually a true exceptions - YNT players).
The only reason to care at U13~U14 is so that your team can get accepted into nationally recognized tournaments for college exposure sake. These are Dallas Cup, Potomac Memorial Day, Surf Cup, Disney Showcase and so on. Since the applicants far exceeds game slots, clearly they only take highly ranked or very well connected.
In terms of individual performance display, probably U16 and above. In other words, even if your team is not on best of the best list, as long as its in the top 10% team in the nation, there will be plenty of opportunity to play in the front of lots of coaches (e.g., LV Players Showcase, Surf Man City Cup, Surf Thanksgiving College Showcase, and so on).
Just remember that the coaches recruit individual players and not teams. About the only time a coach that will come to a league game is to verify their decision after the hard recruiting work is done for reaffirmation. Otherwise they will not come to any local league games.
I remember when my older kid was still playing travel ball, one of the coaches we knew was also SoCal scout for one of the MLB teams. He never gave rats about his teams' W/L records at anything less than 14U. He only cared how the players performed when the kid was 16, 17 years old.
With all that said, this is why so many are attracted to DA. DA provides the best exposure automatically because if you're on one of the DA teams, all the college coaches are there. Even if the team is performing poorly in terms of W/L record. When our older played DA, at the showcase games, it was typical to have 30~40 coaches lined up on the sideline watching any given game. Local college coaches would show up for league games too.
I know people here like to compare DA and ECNL but my guess is that in the long run, DA will win out (given that its USSF that runs it) over any other high level league.
The last thing is there are plenty of kids that get recruited outside of DA/ECNL. Its just that the exposure is more difficult and the player has to work at it much harder to get noticed. Also, many colleges with smaller programs don't seek out DA players because the expectation for scholarship is too high for the schools affordability. I've spoken to many coaches that may have one or two former DA players on the roster but all others are from elsewhere.
Hope this helps.